
Class. Wf 

Book___ 



/r^ y, 



Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL, 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



BT THE 

Rev. HENRY N, HUDSON, 

PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Cooies Received 

MN 29 1909 

Copyright tntry 

"GLASS CL. JWc, No, 

COPY 3. 



J 



) e \D C \ 

ShstkocpfeairHtfut 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

26*12 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Date of Composition. 

THE Tragedy of Coriolanus was never printed till in 
the folio of 1623, and is among the worst specimens 
of printing in that volume. The text as there delivered 
abounds in palpable corruptions : critical sagacity and inge- 
nuity have done their utmost, apparently, towards rectifying 
the numerous errors, and in not a few cases have been re- 
warded with fair success ; still there are some passages that 
seem too much for corrective art. 

The tragedy is not heard of at all through any notice or 
allusion made during the author's life : in fact, we have no 
contemporary note, of reference to it whatever, save in an 
elegy on Richard Burbage, 1 where we learn that the hero's 
part was sustained by that celebrated actor. So that we are 
left without any external evidence as to the date of the 
writing. Nor does the piece itself contain a traceable vestige 
of allusion to any known contemporary events ; such, for 
instance, as that to the new creation of baronets in Othello. 
Our only argument, therefore, as regards the time of compo- 
sition lies in marks of style, use of language, and complexion 
of imagery and thought ; in all which respects it clearly falls 
among the very latest of the Poet's writing. Certainly no 

1 Burbage died in 1619, and a copy of an elegy written on that occasion 
was discovered some years ago among Mr. Heber's manuscripts. See In= 
troduction to Othello, page 4. 



4 CORIOLANUS. 

play of the series surpasses it, and very few, if any, equal it, 
in boldness of metaphor, in autocratic prerogative of ex- 
pression, or in passages marked by an overcrowding of mat- 
ter or an over-compression of language. The strength of 
civil wisdom, also, the searching anatomy of public charac- 
ters and motives, the wide and firm grasp of social and politi- 
cal questions, in short, the whole moral and intellectual cli- 
mate of the piece, — all concur with the former notes in 
marking it off to the Poet's highest maturity of thought and 
power. Therewithal I hold it to be among his greatest tri- 
umphs in organization : I cannot point out, I believe no one 
has pointed out, a single instance where the parts might have 
been better ordered for the proper effect of the whole ; while 
the interest never once flags or falters, nor suffers any break 
or diversion, from the beginning to the end : rather say, it 
holds on with ever-increasing force throughout, and draws 
all the details into its current ; so that the unity of impression 
is literally perfect. In this great point of dramatic architec- 
ture, I think it bears the palm clean away from both the other 
Roman tragedies ; and indeed I am not sure but it should 
be set down as the peer of Othello. 

Historic Material. 

In this, as in the other Roman plays, the historical matter 
was drawn from Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch. 
The events of the drama as related in the old Greek's Life 
of Coriola?ius extend over a period of about four years, from 
the popular secession to the Sacred Mount, B.C. 494, to the 
hero's death, B.C. 490. The capture of Corioli is now reck- 
oned to the year B.C. 493. 

The severity of criticism applied in recent times has made 
rather sweeping work with the dim heroic traditions of old 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

Rome ; insomuch that the story of Coriolanus has now come 
to be generally regarded as among the most beautiful of the 
early Roman legends. With these questions, however, Shake- 
speare of course did not concern himself : like others of his 
time, he was content to take the rambling and credulous, but 
lively and graphic narratives of Plutarch as veritable and 
authentic history. And he would have been every way justi- 
fiable in doing this, even if the later arts of historic doubting 
and sifting, together with the results thereof, had been at his 
command. For his business as an artist was to set forth a 
free and life-like portraiture of human character as modified 
by the old Roman nationality, and clothed with the drapery 
of the old Roman manners. Here, then, the garrulous and 
gossiping old story-teller of Cheronea was just the man for 
him ; since it will hardly be questioned that his tales, whether 
legendary or not, are replete with the spirit and life of the 
times and places to which they refer. 

The Coriolanus of Plutarch offered the Poet a capital basis 
for the construction of a great dramatic hero. Hardly any 
other passage indeed of Roman history could furnish so 
grand and inviting a theme for personal delineation. The 
main outlines of the man's character, and also the principal 
actions ascribed to him, are copied faithfully from the his- 
torian ; while those outlines are filled up and finished with a 
wealth of invention and a depth of judgment which the Poet 
has perhaps nowhere surpassed. The proportions are indeed 
gigantic, not to say superhuman ; so much so, that the boldest 
of delineators might well have scrupled such a portrait, but that 
he had so strong a warrant of historic faith to bear him out. 
The other personal figures, also, with the one exception of 
Menenius Agrippa, were in like sort derived from the same 
time-honoured repository. And the point most worth noting 



6 CORIOLANUS. 

is, that from the parts and fragments thence derived, rich and 
fresh as these often are, th : Poet should have reproduced, as 
it were, the entire form and order of their being, creating an 
atmosphere and environing which so fit and cohere with what 
he borrowed, that the whole has the air and movement of an 
original work. For it may be observed that all the humorous 
and amusing scenes — and Shakespeare has few that are 
more choicely conceived or more aptly used — are supplied 
from the Poet's own mind ; there being no hint towards these 
in Plutarch, except the fable rehearsed and applied by old 
Menenius, who is merely described as one of " the pleasantest 
old men, and the most acceptable to the people." And yet 
how exquisite the keeping of these scenes with the other 
matter of the play ! and how perfectly steeped they seem to 
be in the very genius and spirit of the old Roman life and 
manners ! 

Nor does the Poet's borrowing in this case stop with in- 
cidents or with lines of character : it extends to the very 
words and sentences of the old translator, and this sometimes 
for a considerable space together. In illustration of this, I 
copy, with slight abridgment, the passage describing the flight 
of Coriolanus to Antium, and his reception by Aufidius : 

" It was even twilight when he entered the city, and many 
people met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So 
he went immediately to Tullus Aufidius' house, and when he 
came thither he got him up straight to the chimney-hearth, 
and sat him down, and spake not a word, his face all muffled 
over. They of the house spying him wondered what he 
should be, yet they durst not bid him rise : for, disguised as 
he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in his counte- 
nance and in his silence ; whereupon they went to Tullus who 
was at supper, to tell him of the strange disguising of this 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

man. Tullus rose presently from the board, and coming 
towards him asked who he was, and wherefore he came. 
Then Marcius unmuffled himself, and, after he had 
paused awhile, said ' If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and 
seeing me dost not believe me to be the man I am indeed, 
I must of necessity bewray myself to be that I am. I am 
Caius Marcius, who hath done to thyself particularly, and to 
all the Volsces generally, great hurt and mischief, which I 
cannot deny for my surname Coriolanus that I bear. For 
I never had other benefit of the painful service I have done, 
and the extreme dangers I have been in, but this surname ; 
— a good memory and witness of the malice and displeasure 
thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name only remaineth 
with me : for the rest the envy and cruelty of the people of 
Rome have taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly 
Nobility and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me 
be banished by the people. This extremity hath now driven 
me to come as a poor suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth : 
not of any hope I have to save my life thereby ; for if I had 
feared death, I would not have come hither to put myself in 
hazard ; but pricked forward with desire to be revenged of 
them that thus have banished me ; which now I do begin, 
in putting my person into the hands of their enemies. Where- 
fore, if thou hast any heart to be wreaked of the injuries thy 
enemies have done thee, speed thee now, and let my misery 
serve thy turn, and so use it, that my services may be a ben- 
efit to the Volsces ; promising thee that I will fight with better 
will for you than I did when I was against you ; knowing 
that they fight more valiantly who know the force of the 
enemy than such as have never proved it. But if it be so 
that thou dare not, and art weary to prove fortune any more, 
then am I also weary to live any longer. And it were no 



8 COR10LANUS. 

wisdom in thee to save the life of him who hath been here- 
tofore thy mortal enemy, and whose service now can noth- 
ing help nor pleasure thee.' Tullus, hearing what he said, 
was a marvellous glad man, and, taking him by the hand, 
said unto him, ' Stand up, O Marcius, and be of good cheer : 
for in proffering thyself unto us thou doest us great honour ; 
and by this means thou mayest hope also of greater things 
at all the Volsces' hands.' So he feasted him for that time, 
and entertained him in the honourablest manner he could, 
talking with him of no other matter at that present ; but 
within a few days they fell to consultation in what sort they 
should begin their wars." 

To this I must add the still more remarkable passage 
relating the visit of the Roman ladies to the enemy's camp, 
and the interview between Volumnia and her son : 

" Now was Marcius set in his chair of state, and when he 
spied the women coming afar off he marvelled what it 
meant; but afterwards, knowing his wife, who came fore- 
most, he determined at the first to persist in his rancour. 
But in the end, being altered to see them, his heart would 
not serve him to tarry their coming to his chair ; but, com- 
ing down in haste, he went to meet them, and first he kissed 
his mother and embraced her awhile, then his wife and little 
children. And nature so wrought in him, that the tears fell 
from his eyes, and he could not keep himself from making 
much of them. Then, perceiving that his mother would 
speak, he called the chiefest of the Volsces to hear what 
she would say. Then she spake in this sort : 

" ' If we held our peace, my son, and determined not to 
speak, the state of our poor bodies and present sight of our 
raiment would easily bewray to thee what life we have led 
at home since thy exile : but think now with thyself how 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

much more unfortunate than all the women living we are 
come hither, considering that the sight which should be 
most pleasant to behold, spiteful fortune hath made most 
fearful to us ; making myself to see my son, and my daugh- 
ter here her husband, besieging the walls of his native 
country ; so as that which is the only comfort to all others 
in their adversity, to pray unto the gods and to call to them 
for aid, is the thing which plungeth us in most deep perplex- 
ity. For we cannot, alas ! together pray both for victory 
to our country and for safety of thy life ; but a world of 
grievous curses, yea, more than any mortal enemy can heap 
upon us, are forcibly wrapped up in our prayers. For the 
bitter sop of most hard choice is offered thy wife and chil- 
dren either to lose the person of thyself or the nurse of 
their native country. For myself, my son, I am determined 
not to tarry till fortune in my lifetime do make an end of 
this war ; for, if I cannot persuade thee rather to do good 
unto both parties than to overthrow and destroy the one, 
trust unto it, thou shalt no sooner march forward to assault 
thy country, but thy foot shall tread upon thy mother's 
womb, that brought thee first into this world. And I may 
not defer to see the day, either that my son be led prisoner 
in triumph by his natural countrymen or that he himself do 
triumph of them. If it were so that my request tended to 
save thy country in destroying the Volsces, I must confess 
thou wouldest hardly resolve on that : for, as to destroy thy 
country is altogether unmeet and unlawful ; so were it not 
just, and less honourable, to betray those that put their trust 
in thee. But my only demand consisteth to make a jail- 
delivery of all evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety 
to both, but most honourable to the Volsces. For it shall 
appear that, having victory in their hands, they have granted 



IO CORIOLANUS. 

us singular graces, peace and amity ; of which good, if so it 
come to pass, thyself is the only author, and so hast thou 
the honour. But, if it fail, thyself alone shall carry the 
shameful reproach of either party. So, though the end of 
war be uncertain, yet this is most certain, — that, if it be thy 
chance to conquer, this benefit shalt thou reap of thy goodly 
conquest, to be chronicled the plague and destroyer of thy 
country. And if fortune overthrow thee, then the world will 
say, that through desire to revenge thy private injuries thou 
hast for ever undone thy friends who did most lovingly re- 
ceive thee. — My son, why dost thou not answer me? Dost 
thou take it honourable for a noble man to remember the 
wrongs and injuries done him, and dost not think it an 
honest man's part to be thankful for the goodness that par- 
ents do show to their children ? No man living is more 
bound to show himself thankful in all parts and respects 
than thyself. Thou hast not hitherto showed thy poor 
mother any courtesy, and therefore it is not only honest, but 
due unto me, that I should obtain my so just and reasonable 
request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade 
thee, to what purpose do I defer my last hope ? ' 

"With these words, herself, his wife, and children fell 
down upon their knees before him. Marcius seeing that 
could refrain no longer, but went straight and lift her up, 
crying out, ' O mother, what have you done to me ? ' And, 
holding her hard by the right hand, ' O mother,' said he, 
1 you have won a happy victory for your country, but mortal 
and unhappy for your son ; for I see myself vanquished by 
you alone.' These words being spoken openly, he spake a 
little apart with his mother and wife, and then let them re- 
turn to Rome, for so they did request him ; and so, remain- 
ing in the camp that night, the next morning he dislodged, 
and marched into the Volsces' country again " 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

Shakespeare's Treatment of the Subject. 

I have said that Coriolanus as drawn by Plutarch held 
out strong and taking points of natural aptness for use as 
a grand dramatic hero, and that the Poet's delineation is 
marked by a substantial and even formal adherence to the 
legend in the main outlines of the character. Such a bold 
structure of old Roman manhood, or, if you please, such a 
bold reflection of the old Roman ideas and sentiments of 
manhood, must have been potently fascinating to Shake- 
speare's mind : it was a subject for him to stretch his powers 
upon. But the matter, I think, had yet other attractions 
for him. For the social and political principles involved 
in those early struggles of the Herculean infant Common- 
wealth are among the gravest and most fruitful that human 
history has ever turned up to view. The whole subsequent 
life and grandeur of the Roman State were depending on the 
questions then in issue between the several orders of the 
people. So that the deepest problems of man's social and 
civil being came along naturally in the train of the hero's 
character. And Shakespeare's mode of treating the subject 
shows that he understood all this perfectly. The grand 
philosophic impartiality with which he weighs the different 
forces in action, and casts up or carries on in his mind the 
sum-total of results, fairly argues the matter to have been no 
less attractive to him as a field for discursive reason than for 
dramatic representation. The selection and disposing of the 
incidents, and the whole shaping and drift of the action, 
are ordered with consummate skill to this end. The histori- 
cal events are seized not only in their richest poetical aspect, 
but also in their deepest political relations and bearings. 
And Shakespeare's mighty intellect may here almost be said 



12 CORIOLANUS. 

to wanton and luxuriate on the very marrow of civil and 
philosophical discourse ; insomuch that we may justly apply 
in this behalf the saying of Schlegel, that " under the seem- 
ing artlessness of adhering closely to history as he found it, 
a high degree of art is concealed." 

Accordingly from the scenes of this play may be gath- 
ered, directly or by quick inference, a code and stock of 
practical wisdom large enough and various enough to fur- 
nish out the moralist and the statesman. Especially we 
here seem to have the concentrated essence of all that has 
been written, or that can be said, touching the relative 
claims of aristocracy and democracy. Nor need we travel 
any further to learn all there is to be known touching the 
genius and method of demagogic craft and management. 
In the two Tribunes we have a full-drawn type of the class 
of men who in every age have made it their business or 
their pastime to wheedle and cajole and bamboozle the 
ignorant multitude, and drive them about in herds. At the 
same time, the rights of the people against those who 
would insult and oppress them are held in just and steady 
recognition. The whole work indeed bespeaks a mind 
which, without any loss of vigour or spirit, has ripened up 
into a sage-like calmness, clearness, and sobriety ; which, as 
from a world- commanding eminence, has made a full and 
complete survey of humanity ; which knows men through 
and through, both as individuals and as members of the 
body politic ; and which understands how man and man, 
rank and rank, class and class, sex and sex, act and react on 
one another in all the civil and social relations of life : so 
that he can view and touch them, play or be serious with 
them, laugh at or instruct them, as one that is thoroughly 
at home both among and within them. Yet this large and 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

varied science is kept in due subordination to the nature 
and law of the work, which is in no sort an essay or a trea- 
tise, nor carries any shade of a didactic purpose in its face, 
but is simply an elevation of history into pure drama. If 
indeed I were to mark the distinctive excellence of the 
piece, I should set it down as standing in a free union of 
the moral and political idea with the dramatic, or of the 
philosophic mind with the poetic. 

Rights of the People "well Respected. 

Hazlitt charges that in this play the Poet shows a strong 
leaning to the side of Patrician arrogance and pride against 
the rights and feelings of the people. Therewithal he ex- 
patiates at large to make out how much more of poetry 
there is in the high treadings of aristocratic insolence than 
in the modest walking of Plebeian humility. According to 
his notion, a wolf raging among a flock of sheep is a far 
more poetical object than the terrified flock. This is " an 
old fond paradox," which would persuade us there is natu- 
rally more beauty in the doing of wrong than in the suffer- 
ing of wrong, thus divorcing poetry from that which is 
right and good. For my part, I prefer a different faith ; 
and I confess to finding more of poetry in Burns's "wee, 
modest crimson-tipped flower" than in the high-flaunting 
plant that with its coarse proud face seems to mock the 
Sun. 

There is, I believe, no ground for such a charge as Haz- 
litt' s in this case. On the contrary, the play, I think, may 
be justly cited as a pattern of dramatic evenhandedness. 
The ugly and offensive points of the hero, those which 
draw upon him the people's hatred, are set forth unspar- 



14 CORIOLANUS. 

ingly ; not indeed naked and alone, for this were turning 
them into caricature, but in combination with high and 
noble traits, just as delivered in the history, and just as we 
are finding them perpetually in actual men. So, on the 
other side, much that is good and generous in the people, 
as well as what is envious and mean, has a kindly and cor- 
dial showing, sometimes playful indeed, and sometimes 
otherwise ; but still so as, in effect, to engage them more of 
sympathy than of contempt. They are represented as 
bearing much, forgiving much ; free to acknowledge the 
greatness of the haughty Patrician, and not more resenting 
his insolence than regretting it ; and never withheld from 
making fair returns of honour even against many and. great 
provocations, till set on fire by the tongues of ambitious 
and self-seeking agitators. If there be any person in the 
play whom the Poet leans to more than another, it is old 
Menenius, a frank, patriotic, liberal soul, who is genially 
and lovingly humorous towards the people even when his 
eye is upon their faults, yet free and upright in reproving 
them, though at the same time mindful of their virtues ; 
who smilingly stoops to play jokes upon them, that so he 
may soothe and sweeten their exasperated minds ; using his 
good-natured wit to heal as fast as his sharpness wounds ; 
and thus standing at an equal remove from the insulting 
aristocrat and the snaky demagogue. 

I will even venture to say that the people as here repre- 
sented have in them a preponderance of the amiable and 
the good, while in the hero there is a clear preponderance 
of the reverse. It is true, they are something inconstant 
and uncertain in their temper, insomuch as to be reproached 
by him that "with every minute they do change a mind"; 
but he is quite as changeable as they, and withal much less 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

excusable in his inconstancy. They do not indeed like to be 
scorned and mocked by their superiors, especially those who 
are soliciting their favour and support ; whereas he, in his 
overwrought and passionate egotism, takes care to make 
them feel his contempt even while he is begging their votes. 
To be sure, he is frank and honest in his flouts and scoffs ; 
but then he might be equally frank and honest in abstaining 
from them : or, if he cannot be kind and courteous to the 
people without being false to himself, this only argues the 
greater viciousness of temper in him. He, in his towering 
arrogance, would have his own will stand as an ultimate law 
both for himself and for them ; but they are far from claim- 
ing any such monstrous prerogative over him : it is his pride 
to act towards them as if they had no business to exist but 
for the pleasure of such as he is ; while they are merely 
acting on the principle that their own welfare and happiness 
should enter into the purpose of their living : he would 
stand " as if a man were author of himself, and knew no 
other kin," and would have them live entirely for his ends ; 
whereas they insist on living partly for themselves ; and all 
they claim is, that he shall own his nature to be kindred 
with theirs, and treat them as having the same human heart 
which beats in him. Thus their spirit is sociable and sym- 
pathetic ; his, solitary and exclusive : he craves to dwell 
aloft where nothing but his own individuality can breathe ; 
they prize the life which all have in common, and are for 
having the individual will of each tempered into harmony 
with that life. 

Such is about the aspect which this delineation of old 
Roman society wears to me. So regarding it, of course I 
cannot see that the hero is glorified at the expense of the 
people. He does indeed make a grander figure than they 



l6 CORIOLANUS. 

do : this was required both by the nature of the subject and 
by the laws of dramatic interest : but his grandeur, though 
it draws the imagination, is of a kind to repel the heart. 
We wonder at the man, but are far from loving him or wish- 
ing to be like him. True, at the capture of Corioli, the 
Poet makes the people fall to plundering, which draws upon 
them a storm of reproach from the hero : but this was in 
the history ; moreover such has been the practice of com- 
mon soldiers in all ages and places of the world. In short, 
the representation given of the people in this play is at all 
points true to the life : so that it does not well appear how 
those who despise them as here characterized can fail to 
despise them as they are in fact. To my thinking, the 
Poet's multitude in this case are both better and wiser than 
their Patrician contemner. 

Delineation of the Hero. 

The remarks already made infer pride to be the backbone 
of the hero's character ; this too a pride standing partly 
indeed on class and family grounds, but still more on such 
as are purely individual or personal. And such is the idea 
of the man which Shakespeare found in Plutarch, who pref- 
aces his narrative with the following calm and weighty sen- 
tences touching the subject : 

" While the force and vigour of his soul, and a persevering 
constancy in all he undertook, led him successfully into 
many noble achievements, yet, on the other side, by indulg- 
ing the vehemence of his passion, and through an obstinate 
reluctance to yield or accommodate his humours and senti- 
ments to those of people about him, he rendered himself 
incapable of acting and associating with others. Those who 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

saw with admiration how proof his nature was against all the 
softness of pleasure, the hardships of service, and the allure- 
ments of gain, while allowing to that universal firmness of 
his the respective names of temperance, fortitude, and jus- 
tice, yet, in the life of the citizen and the statesman, could 
not choose but be disgusted at the severity and ruggedness 
of his deportment, and with his overbearing, haughty, and 
imperious temper. Education and study, and the favours of 
the Muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them 
than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach 
our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed 
by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes." 

In accordance with what is here said, Shakespeare not 
only makes pride the hero's master-principle, but also sets 
forth his pride as being rendered altogether inflammable and 
uncontrollable by passion ; insomuch that, if a spark of 
provocation is struck into the latter, the former instantly 
flames up beyond measure, and sweeps away all the regards 
of prudence, of decorum, and even of common sense. It 
is therefore strictly characteristic of the man, that an un- 
expected word of reproach stings him to the quick : the in- 
stant it touches his ear, he explodes like a rocket. It is on 
this that the wily Tribunes work, plying their craft, and 
watching the time to sting him into some fatal provocation 
of popular resentment. Hence, also, the Poet, with great 
judgment, and without any hint from the history, makes 
Aufidius, when the time is ripe for firing off the conspiracy 
against his life, touch him into an ecstasy of passionate rage 
by spitting the term boy at him. Now his very pride, if 
duly guarded by the strengths of reason and self-respect, 
would have caused him, from the utter unfitness of such an 
spithet, to answer it with calm and silent scorn : but he re- 



1 8 CORIOLANUS. 

sents it in proportion as it strikes wide of him, and makes its 
very absurdity the cause of its power over him. 

The people, too, would gladly reward his noble acts with 
the highest honours in their gift, but that, to their sense, " he 
pays himself with being proud." They glory in his valour 
and prowess ; his strength of heart and of hand is to them a 
theme of willing praise ; but they complain, as they well may, 
that he is too proud of being so valiant : nay, an instinct of 
social reason tells them, and truly too, that his heroic exploits 
are done rather with a view to nurse and pamper his pride 
and self-will than from any impulse of patriotism, of public 
spirit, or even of honourable ambition : in short, it is not at 
all to win their respect and goodwill, but only to feed his in- 
ordinate egotism, that he enacts the hero. They are even 
so liberal as to grant that the fault is something ingenerate 
in his nature, so that he cannot altogether help it, and are 
ready to make large allowance for him on this score : but 
then the more he helps them by his deeds, the more he 
wounds them with his insolence ; nay, he seems to delight 
in serving them, only that he may turn his service into a 
vantage-ground for spurning them ; and this is what they 
cannot bear, because it seems to them, as indeed it is, truly 
inhuman, and renders him unfit for any sort of intercourse 
with men. 

There is withal much in the people that is really not de- 
serving of respect. This the hero seizes on greedily, and 
makes the most of, as favouring that whereon his pride 
mainly fastens ; and at the same time winks away whatever 
there is in them of redeeming quality : he scorns their mean- 
ness, and is glad to find it in them, as giving him cause for 
scorning them : he prefers to see in them nothing but what 
is vile, and would fain make them as vile as he thinks them 






INTRODUCTION. 19 

to be, that so his contempt may stand justified in his own 
sight. Still he is placed where his pride cannot reach its 
mark but by their suffrage ; for its dearest gratification, he 
must pay his court to that which most galls and offends 
it. Here the people have a strong hold upon him. So 
nothing will do but that he try to extort their admiration 
and suffrage while making them hate his person : what he 
most prides himself upon is to have his greatness force 
honours from them notwithstanding his insolence to them ; 
because such a contradiction between their feeling and their 
voting serves to emphasize his superiority. This is well 
shown in what falls from one of those almost characterless 
speakers in whom the Poet sometimes puts much candour 
and shrewdness of observation, and then uses them as the 
mouthpiece of his own judgment : " If he did not care 
whether he had their love or no, he'd waved indifferently 
'twixt doing them neither good nor harm ; but he seeks 
zheir hate with greater devotion than they can render it 
him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover 
him their opposite." Hence, when he goes out to beg their 
voices, he is careful to spice his requests with mockery, and to 
let them see that his spirit disclaims what his tongue speaks : 
then, if they excuse his spirit on the score of his formal com- 
pliance, this will be his triumph, and his pride will take a 
special benefit in their pocketing of his insults. 

It is a bold but most natural stroke of character, that the 
hero, notwithstanding his alleged intense aversion to seem- 
ing at all the thing he is not, can yet dissemble to perfection 
when the doing so does not conflict with his ruling passion. 
From his bearing towards the people, one would suppose it 
were quite impossible for him to practise any sort of coun- 
terfeit or concealment. On this ground Menenius apolo- 
gizes for his rough bluntness of manner : 



20 CORIOLANUS. 

His nature is too noble for the world : 

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 

Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth : 

What his breast forges, that his tongue must veiit. 

Consider this : He has been bred i' the wars 
Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd 
In bolted language ; meal and bran together 
He throws without distinction. 

Thus others think him, and he thinks himself, utterly incapa- 
ble of simulating any thing on the outside that is not really 
in his heart. And, when his friends entreat him to comply 
externally and in form with the people's humour, it really 
seems a necessity of nature with him to be the same without 
as he is within : so, after trying his best, apparently, to frame 
his mind to their request, he frankly declares at last, 

I will not do't ; 
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, 
And by my body's action teach my mind 
A most inherent baseness. 

But all this, as the sequel proves, is simply because his pride 
does not draw in that direction, or rather draws directly the 
other way. For, after the sentence of exile, and when he is 
preparing to leave, he forthwith goes to practising the closest 
reserve and concealment of his mind, and appears indeed a 
complete master in dissimulative art. With his inner man 
in a perfect tempest of passion, he is nevertheless outwardly 
calm and serene : while the darkest thoughts of revenge are 
boiling within, his face and speech carry the style of the 
blandest and smoothest composure. And he not only seems 
placid and quiet himself, while his mother is deeply agitated 
with grief and anger, but goes to schooling her with her own 
former lessons of calmness and patience, reminding her how 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

she " used to load him with precepts that would make 
invincible the heart that conn'd them" ; insomuch that none 
suspect the stormy resolves and purposes he is forming. In 
all which his action is no doubt spontaneous, and proceeds 
rather from an instinct of passion than from any conscious 
art : but this only infers the more strongly how the same 
cause which, before, prevented his dissembling, now renders 
him a consummate dissembler. As he was then too proud 
to be other in mouth than he was in heart towards the peo- 
ple, so here his pride naturally puts him upon making his 
face the visard and not the index of his mind. Egotism 
and conscience are indeed very different things. But they 
sometimes get strangely mixed. 

Coriolanus, however, is not altogether " himself his world 
and his own god " : his will no doubt is to be so, and this is 
perhaps the most constant force in him ; but he has other 
and better forces, which often rise against his egotism, and 
sometimes prevail over it, and at last carry the victory clean 
away from it. His character indeed is not a little mixed : 
and all its parts, good and bad, are fashioned on so large a 
scale as to yield matter enough for making out a strong case 
either way, according as the observer's mind is set to a course 
of all blame or all praise ; while at the same time the several 
lines are so bold and pronounced, that it is not easy for one 
to keep clear of all extremes, and so to take the impression 
of a given side as to fit the subject all round. Nor is his 
pride, with all its anti-social harshness, destitute of amiable 
and engaging features. There are some points of nobleness 
and magnanimity about it : the various regards of rank, 
family, country, talents, and courage enter into its composi- 
tion, causing it to partake the general greatness of his char- 
acter ; and as it grows partly by what he derives from and 



22 CORIOLANUS. 

shares with others, as well as by what is peculiar to himself, 
so it involves much of the spirit that commonly issues in 
great virtues as well as great faults. Hence it is not such as, 
of itself, to burn out the better juices of manhood : mod- 
esty, gratitude, openness of heart and hand, go in company 
with it. And so far it is of a genius and temper to keep 
clean and sweet the breast where it dwells ; the principle of 
that inward discipline under which tenderness of heart, purity 
and rectitude of life, and many of the milder and gentler 
qualities have their best cherishing ; a natural source of re- 
plenishment to whatever virtues it guards, because its own 
best nourishment is in the noble growth it fosters. Which is 
well evinced in that, with all his passionate craving of re- 
nown, he still counts it among his chief honours to be the 
cause that others are honoured. And if he is jealous of 
the position of his fellow Patricians, he is jealous of their 
merit too ; would guard their virtue as carefully as their 
rank ; is not less strenuous to have them deserve than to 
have them hold the place of supreme power and reverence 
in the State. So the Poet read in Plutarch how he besought 
the Patricians " to let the people know by their deeds, that 
they did not so much pass them in power and riches as in 
true nobility and valiantness." Nor should it be omitted 
that the admission of the people to a direct share in the 
government is a new thing with them : he is not used to it ; 
he resents it as an invasion of ancient right ; he fears it as 
a seed of political anarchy and dissolution. Old Rome was, 
indeed a wonderful nation : Shakespeare could not but be 
fascinated with the record of its splendours and greatness ; 
and the hero's character offered him an apt and inviting 
occasion for representing the struggle between those two 
antagonist forces in the State whose reconcilement and unity 






INTRODUCTION. 23 

did so much towards building and cementing the mighty- 
structure. 

I have spoken of the hero's modesty ; yet I have to con- 
fess that there is something rather equivocal about it. He 
cannot indeed frame his mouth to the language of flattery, 
and he has an honest aversion to being flattered ; and so 
far his temper is noble and just. Withal it seems really to 
offend him to hear himself praised ; yet he is so ostentatious 
and emphatic, not to say supercilious, in his disgust of the 
thing, as to breed some doubt whether, after all, it is any 
thing but egotism in disguise, or whether it is not rather the 
offspring of arrogance than of real modesty. When he so 
energetically scouts to " hear his nothings monster' d," there 
is in his manner a strong relish of haughty contempt for his 
praisers, or a certain censorious loftiness of mind, as if he 
craved occasions for rebuking his friends and admirers, and 
of making them feel his immense superiority. Men have 
sometimes towered so high in self-approval as to scorn the 
approval of their fellow-men. And so our hero's behaviour 
in this point smacks a good deal as if his self-applause were 
so enormous, that the strongest applause of others seems to 
him utterly inadequate, or as if he felt his greatness to be of 
so transcendent a pitch as to " make breath poor and speech 
unable." Such a desperate calenture of egotism may, and 
sometimes does, pass for modesty, for it is apt to use the 
style of that virtue ; the man seeming to shrink from the 
voice of praise, while in truth his extreme self-sufficiency 
merely leads him to think that none are able to appreciate 
him, or good enough to praise him. That Shakespeare saw 
the germs of this disease in the deep intricacies of the human 
heart, is apparent from his saying of another famous charac- 
ter, that " he speaks not to himself but with a pride that 



24 CORIOLANUS. 

quarrels at self-breath." And the delineation of Coriolanus 
has many notes which infer the man's disdaining of honours 
to be at least partly in the idea that no honours can come up 
to his merit. That the Poet conceived 'this as among the 
hero's traits of character, becomes evident when he makes 
his arrogance reach the height of supposing that all Rome 
cannot counterpoise his own gigantic importance. On being 
banished, Coriolanus assumes that the loss of his single per- 
son will be worse for Rome than the loss of Rome will be 
to him ; and so retorts the sentence with — 

You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
That do corrupt my air, — / banish you. 

The Hero and his Mother. 

But the man, it must be confessed, is gloriously proud of 
his mother : in fact, his pride in her is only less than his 
pride of personal greatness and of self. This is the one 
point indeed where his pride relaxes its anti- social stiffness, 
and ceases to be individual and exclusive. And it is very 
considerable that he appears noblest and strongest just when 
his nature outwrestles his purpose, and when his pride 
breaks down under the weight of filial reverence and duty. 
Shakespeare had it before him in Plutarch, that " the only 
thing which caused him to love honour was the delight his 
mother had of him ; for nothing made him so happy as that 
she might always see him return with a crown upon his 
head, and still embrace him, with tears running down her 
cheeks for joy." And so, as represented in the drama, he 
can outface the rest of the world, but his mother, with his 
household treasures at her side, is too much for him : when 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

he has conquered all the armies of his country, and has the 
State itself at his feet, her eloquence, her strength of soul, 
and patriotic devotion conquer him. In his rapture of self- 
will, he aspires to act the god, and thinks to stifle the heart's 
instincts, and to rise above the natural emotions ; and he 
stands most redeemed to our judgment and our sense of 
manliness, when at last a diviner power than will masters 
him, and the sacred regards of home triumph over his self- 
sufficiency, and his arrogance succumbs to the touch of 
domestic awe and tenderness, and he frankly yields himself 
human. Where have we another such an instance of pride 
struggling with affection, and of an iron will subdued by the 
spontaneous forces of the human breast, as when he sees the 
embassy of women approaching? 

My wife comes foremost ; then the honour'd mould 

Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand 

The grandchild to her blood. — But out, affection ! 

All bond and privilege of nature, break! 

Let it be virtuous to be obstinate. — 

What is that curtsy worth ? or those doves' eyes, 

Which can make gods forsworn ? I melt, and am not 

Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows ; 

As if Olympus to a molehill should 

In supplication nod ; and my young boy 

Hath an aspect of intercession, which 

Great Nature cries Deny not. 

I know not where to look for a grander picture than we 
have in the same scene afterwards, when the conqueror's 
haughtiness and parricidal hardness gradually limber and 
soften, and at length fall clean away, at the voice of mater- 
nal intercession. Such a mingling of austerity and tender- 
ness is met with nowhere else in Shakespeare's poetry. And 
it is to be noted that the mother's triumph does not seem to 



26 CORIOLANUSo 

be fully consummated, till her great woman's heart stiffens 
up with something of the son's pride, and she turns away 
with an air of defiance : 

Come, let us go : 
This fellow had a Volscian to his mother ; 
His wife is in Corioli, and this child 
Like him by chance. 

That she can be like him in pride thaws down that temper 
somewhat in him, and disposes him to be like her in other 
points. In accordance with his usual method, the Poet pre- 
pares us for this crowning victory of the mother by a lighter 
example in the same kind. I refer to the scene, iii. 2, 
where Volumnia urges her son to appease the infuriated 
multitude by playing the amiable towards them. His pride 
snaps off an intense repugnance to the undertaking, and 
she subdues him to it : 

At thy choice, then : 
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour 
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin : let 
Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear 
Thy dangerous stoutness ; for I mock at death 
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list. 
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me ; 
But own'st thy pride thyself. 

The Hero and his "Wife. 

Nor is the mother's the only influence at work to break 
the hero out of his unnatural purpose and recall him to bet- 
ter thoughts. She indeed does nearly all the speaking ; but 
her speech is powerfully reinforced by the presence and 
aspect of others. Little is said of Virgilia, and still less is 
said by her ; but that little is so managed as to infer a great 
deal. A very gentle, retiring, undemonstrative person, she 
has withal much quiet firmness, and even a dash of some- 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

thing very like obstinacy, in her disposition. Her power 
touches the centre of her husband's heart ; and it does this 
the better for being the power of delicacy and sweetness ; 
a power the more effective with him, that it is so utterly 
unlike his own. So, when he returns from the war all cov- 
ered with glory, her silent tears of joy are to him a sweeter 
tribute than the loud applause of all the rest : he hails her 
as "my gracious silence," and plays out his earnest tender- 
ness in the question, "Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I 
come coffin'd home, that weep'st to see me triumph?" 
How deeply her still forces have stolen into his being, is 
charmingly evinced in what he says to her when she comes 
with her speechless supplication to second the voice of 
maternal remonstrance : 

Best of my flesh, 
Forgive my tyranny ; but do not say 
For that, Forgive our Romans. O, a kiss 
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge ! 
Now, by the jealous Queen of Heaven, that kiss 
I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip 
Hath virgin'd it e'er since. 

Here he finds his entire household in something more 
powerful than arms to resist him ; the mother, the wife, the 
child, all are shaming his parricidal revenge by standing true 
to their fatherland against the son, the husband, and the 
father ; and the words just quoted show that the might of 
the silent mourner is even more penetrating than that of the 
eloquent pleader. The two women have hearts stronger in 
love than his in pride ; and the prime object of that love is 
the old Rome of their fathers : both the mother and the wife 
are steadfastly resolved that, if he march any further against 
that object, it shall be over their bodies ; while the boy's 
Roman spirit flashes up in the strange declaration, " 'A shall 



28 CORIOLANUS. 

not tread on me ; I'll run away till I am bigger, then I'll 
fight." The hideous unnaturalness of his course is brought 
fully home to him at thus seeing that the very childhood of 
his own flesh and blood is instinctively bent on resisting him, 
and will sooner disown his kindred and make war upon 
him than give way to his fury against their common nurse. 
Therewithal, in the presence of "the noble sister of Publi- 
cola, the Moon of Rome," he sees how all that is most illus- 
trious in the same proud Patrician stock on which he so 
much prides himself, even those who were most hurt in his 
banishment, will rather unite with his banishers in imploring 
the gods against him than surrender their country to his 
revenge. And I am apt to think that what most took 
Shakespeare in this ancient tale of Roman patriotism was, 
that while, to the minds of those high-souled men and 
women, it was a great thing to be Patricians, to be Romans 
was a much greater. 

Roman Womanhood. 

A nation's favourite legends have a very close connection 
with its character, and are indeed the spontaneous out- 
growth of its peculiar genius and spirit : that they reflect its 
ideals of right and good is what gives them life and cur- 
rency. Now, in the primitive Roman scheme of thought, 
the warrior held the first place, the mother the second. 
Womanhood in general was indeed a great power in old 
Rome, and to be a mother was the highest honour but one. • 
Veneration of the matronage was the delight and pride of 
early Roman manhood : the gods were believed on several 
occasions to have bestowed special blessings and deliver- 
ances on the commonwealth through the women : temples 



INTRODUCTION. 20, 

were built, high honours paid to womanhood, in the faith 
that the women had repeatedly been the salvation of their 
country from ruin ; and in the intercession which prevailed 
with our hero the women were held to have been kindled 
and moved to the undertaking by the special inspiration of 
the gods. In short, the men of old Rome seem to have 
thought that the gods would forthwith abandon them, if 
they ceased to respect their mothers and their wives. 

In the legend of Coriolanus the hero's character stands 
out as a special impersonation of the two great ideas of 
martial courage and prowess, and of filial piety and submis- 
sion. From this point, it draws deep into the general system 
of Roman morals and manners. Reverence for parents, the 
religion of home, the sacredness of the domestic enclosure, 
worship of the household gods, whatever shed consecration 
on the family, and surrounded it with the angels of piety and 
awe, — these were the corner-stone of the old Roman disci- 
pline, the palladium of the national strength and virtue. To 
fight bravely, to suffer heroically, for their country, were the 
outposts of manhood, the outside and public parts of manly 
honour ; while its heart and centre stood in having some- 
thing at home worth fighting and suffering for : of this 
something motherhood was the soul ; and their best 
thoughts drew to the point of being " more brave for this, 
that they had much to love." 

Character of Volumnia. 

In this view, Volumnia aptly impersonates the woman's 
and the mother's side of the Roman system. She is a 
superb figure indeed, yet a genuine woman throughout, 
though with a high strain of what may be called manliness 



30 CORIOLANUS. 

pervading her womanhood. She has all of her son's essen- 
tial strength and greatness of character, and is nearly as 
proud withal as he : but her pride has a much less individual 
and unsocial cast ; he is the chief matter of her pride, while 
self is the chief matter of his : she is proud of him too far 
more for her country's sake than either for his or her own : 
her supreme ambition is that he should be the greatest 
among the Romans ; and she would have his greatness stand 
in being more a Roman than any of the others. Hence her 
pride flames out in fierce resentment at the sentence of 
exile : her maternal heart boils over with passion, insomuch 
that to those who are nowise in sympathy with her anger 
she seems insane ; and she bangs away at the Tribunes with 
the wildest notes of imprecation : 

I would the gods had nothing else to do 
But to confirm my curses ! Could I meet 'em 
But once a-day, it would unclog my heart 
Of what lies heavy to't ; 

then hotly remonstrates against the quiet weeping grief of 
her daughter-in-law : 

Anger's my meat ; I sup upon myself, 

And so shall starve with feeding. — Come, let's go: 

Leave this faint puling, and lament as I do, 

In anger, Juno-like. 

Against the people also she goes into a lingual tempest, 
and speaks as if she would gladly see Rome burnt, since 
Rome rejects her heart's idol ; but the sequel shows this to 
be all because she is so intensely Roman in spirit : when 
things come to the pinch, her actions speak quite another 
language ; and she is as far from sympathizing with her son 
in his selfish vindictiveness as she had been from sympathiz- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

ing with the people's madness in banishing him. That a 
Roman should fight his way to the highest honours in Rome, 
is just what she believes in ; but that he should fight for any 
thing but Rome, is beyond her conception. So, when she 
sees her son waging war against his country, where his home 
and all its treasures are, she considers him to have renounced 
the only cause for fighting at all. It seems to her that he is 
making war against the one sole object or end of war ; and 
she will rather disclaim her part in him than take part with 
him j nay, will rather die with Rome than see him grow by 
the death of that for which alone, in her view, a Roman 
should wish to live. 

As the mother's pride is tempered by a more disinterested 
and patriotic spirit than the son's, so she holds a much more 
firm and steady course : her words, in moments of high re- 
sentment, fly about wildly indeed, but her heart sticks fast 
to its cherished aims. And her energy of thought and pur- 
pose, if not greater than her son's, yet in the end triumphs 
over his, because it proceeds on grounds less selfish and per- 
sonal. She knows and feels that the gods are with her in 
it. The Poet wisely, and out of his own invention, repre- 
sents her as exhorting him to temporize with the people, and 
to use arts for conciliating them which have no allowance in 
his bosom's truth : 

I pr'ythee now, my son, 
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand ; 
And — thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them,) 
Thy knee bussing the stones, waving thy head, 
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, 
Bow, humble as the ripest mulberry 
That will not hold the handling — say to them, 
Thou art their soldier, and, being bred in broils, 
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess, 
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim, 



32 CORIOLANUS. 

In asking their good loves ; but thou wilt frame 
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far 
As thou hast power and person. 

For even so, like a true woman, as she is, she " would dis- 
semble with her nature, where her fortune and her friends at 
stake required she should do so in honour." To her sense 
and judgment of things, deeds are to be weighed more by 
their ends and effects in regard of others than by their in- 
trinsic quality to the doer's mind ; that is, a man should act 
rather with a view to help and gladden and comfort those 
about him, to serve his country and his kind, than to feed his 
moral egotism, or any sullen pride or humour of self- applause. 
It is even a rule of honour with her, that a man should, in 
his action, be more considerate of what will further the wel- 
fare and happiness of others than of what will please him- 
self, or accord with any inward or ideal standard of his own. 
And so it is rightly in woman's nature, as being less wilful 
and more sympathetic in her reason, to judge of actions 
mainly by the practical consequences which she hopes or 
fears therefrom ; I mean the consequences not only or chiefly 
to herself, but to those whom she loves. Therefore it is 
that women have so often been peace-makers in men's wars 
of opinions and passions and ideas ; and I know not what 
would become of human society if their softer bosom did 
not come in to mitigate the sharpness of the brain. 

Volumnia, though something more admirable than lovely 
in her style, is a capital representative of the old Roman 
matronly character, in which strength and dignity seem to 
have had rather the better of sweetness and delicacy, but 
which enshrined the very soul of rectitude and honour. 
And what a story does the life of this mother and this son, 
with their reciprocal action and influence, as set forth in the 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

play, tell us of the old Roman domestic system, and of the 
religious awe of motherhood which formed so large and 
powerful an element in the social constitution of that won- 
derful people ! What a comment, too, does all this, taken 
together with the history of that nation, read upon the 
Divine precept, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that 
thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee " ! For reverence of children to their parents 
is the principle that binds together successive generations in 
one continuous life. It is only by men's thinking and act- 
ing as in "the presence of canonized forefathers," that the 
elements of disorder in human nature can be withheld from 
running to fatal extremes. So that the loosening or impair- 
ing of this tie may well be feared as the beginning of domes- 
tic and social dissolution ; since they who forget or disown 
their fathers and mothers will naturally be forgotten and dis- 
owned in turn by their children ; if indeed the very soul of 
parental instinct and religion does not get stifled out of them 
under a stress of luxury and selfishness. For the decay of 
filial respect and piety has sometimes gone so far, that men 
and women have come to regard it as among the greatest of 
evils to be fathers and mothers. 

The Volscian Chief. 

Tullus Aufidius makes a very effective foil to Coriolanus, 
the contrast between them being pressed forward in just the 
right way to show off the vein of true nobleness which there 
is in the latter. He has all the pride and passionateness of 
the hero, without any of his gratitude and magnanimity. 
In Coriolanus the spirit of rivalry and emulation never 
passes the bounds of honour ; in the other, it turns to down- 



34 CORIOLANUS. 

right personal envy and hate. The hero glories in him as 
an antagonist, and loves to whip him in fair fight, but is far 
above all thought of ruining him or stabbing him in the 
dark. The shocking speech of Aufidius, in the first scene 
where he appears after the taking of Corioli, is a skilful fore- 
cast and premonition of his transport of baseness at the 

close : 

Nor sleep nor sanctuary, 
Being naked, sick ; nor fane nor Capitol, 
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice, 
Embankments all of fury, sha^- lift up 
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst 
My hate to Marcius : where I find him, were it 
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there, 
Against the hospitable canon, would I 
Wash my fierce hand in's heart. 

Hereupon Coleridge comments as follows : " I have such 
deep faith in Shakespeare's heart- lore, that I take for granted 
that this is in nature ; although I cannot in myself discover 
any germ of possible feeling, which could wax and unfold 
itself into such a sentiment." The speech is hard indeed; 
but I do not take it as a fair index of the speaker's real 
mind : it seems to me but one of those violent ebullitions 
of rage in which men's hearts are not so bad as their 
tongues ; the impulsive extravagance of a very ambitious 
and inconstant nature writhing in an agony of disappoint- 
ment. In such cases, dark thoughts often bubble up from 
unseen depths in the mind, yet do not crystallize into char- 
acter. Still it must be owned that Aufidius comes pretty 
near putting the thought of the speech into act at last. 
Verplanck has a happy comment on the passage : " The 
mortification of defeat embitters Aufidius' rivalry into hatred. 
When, afterwards, his banished rival appeals to his nobler 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

nature, that hatred dies away, and his generous feeling re- 
vives. Bitter jealousy and hatred again grow up, as his glories 
are eclipsed by his former adversary ; yet this dark pas- 
sion, too, finally yields to a generous sorrow at his rival's 
death. I think I have observed very similar alternations of 
such mixed motives and sentiments, in eminent men, in the 
collisions of political life." 



CORIOLANUS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Caius Marcius Coriolanus. 
Young Marcius, his Son. 
Menenius Agrippa, his Friend. 
Titus Lartius, l Generals against 
Cominius, J the Volscians. 

Sicinius Velutus, ) Tribunes of the 
Junius Brutus, J People. 
A Roman Herald. 

TULLUS Aufidius, General of the 
Volscians. 

Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, ^Ediles, Lictors, Soldiers, Citi- 
zens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other Attendants. 

SCENE. — Partly in Rome and its neighbourhood ; partly in the Territories 
of the Volscians and Antiates. 



Lieutenant to Aufidius. 
Conspirators with Aufidius. 
A Citizen of Antium. 
Two Volscian Guards. 

Volumnia, Mother to Coriolanus. 
VIRGILIA, Wife to Coriolanus. 
Valeria, Friend to Virgilia. 
Gentlewoman attending Virgilia. 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — Rome. A Street. 

Enter a Company of mutinous Citizens, with staves, clubs, 
and other weapons. 

i Cit. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak. 
Citizens. Speak, speak. 

i Cit. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish? 
Citizens. Resolved, resolved. 

i Cit. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to 
the people. 



38 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

Citizens. We know't, we know't. 

i Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own 
price. Is't a verdict ? 

Citizens. No more talking on't ; let it be done : away, 
away ! 

2 Cit. One word, good citizens. 

i Cit. We are accounted poor citizens ; the patricians, 
good. 1 What authority surfeits on would relieve us : if they 
would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, 
we might guess they relieved us humanely ; but they think we 
are too dear : the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our 
misery, 2 is as an inventory to particularize their abundance ; 
our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with 
our pikes, ere we become rakes : 3 for the gods know I speak 
this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. 

2 Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Mar- 
cius? 

i Cit. Against him first : he's a very dog to the com- 
monalty. 

2 Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his 
country ? 

i Cit. Very well ; and could be content to give him good 
report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud. 

2 Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously. 

1 Good seems to be here used in a double sense, one of them being the 
commercial ; as by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice : " My meaning, in 
saying he is a. good man, is to have you understand me, that he is sufficient." 

2 Meaning, apparently, the sight or spectacle of their misery; their lean- 
ness was the object that served, by comparison, to remind the Patricians of 
their own abundance ; and so the sufferings of the Plebs were a gain to them. 

3 " As lean as a rake " was an ancient proverb ; rake being from rache, 
which signifies a greyhound. Pike ox pike fork is also an old word for pitch- 
fork. Of course a quibble is intended on rake. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 39 

1 Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he 
did it to that end : though soft-conscienced men can be 
content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his 
mother, and partly to be proud ; which he is, even to the 
altitude of his virtue. 

2 Cit. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a 
vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. 

i Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations ; 
he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. \Shouts 
within."] What shouts are these? The other side o' the 
city is risen : why stay we prating here ? to the Capitol ! 

Citizens. Come, come. 

i Cit. Soft ! who comes here ? 

2 Cit. Worthy Menenius Agrippa ; one that hath always 
loved the people. 

i Cit. He's one honest enough : would all the rest were 
so ! 

Enter Menenius Agrippa. 

Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go 
you 
With bats and clubs? the matter? speak, I pray you. 

i Cit. Our business is not unknown to the Senate ; they 
have had inkling, this fortnight, what we intend to do, which 
now we'll show em in deeds. They say poor suitors have 
strong breaths : they shall know we have strong arms too. 

Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neigh- 
bours, 
Will you undo yourselves ? 

I Cit. We cannot, sir, we are undone already. 

Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care 
Have the patricians of you. For your wants. 



40 CORIOLANUS. ACT L 

Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well 
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them 
Against the Roman State ; whose course will on 
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs 
Of more strong link asunder than can ever 
Appear in your impediment : for the dearth, 
The gods, not the patricians, make it ; and 
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack, 
You are transported by calamity 
Thither where more attends you ; and you slander 
The helms 4 o' the State, who care for you like fathers, 
When you curse them as enemies. 

i Cit. Care for us ! True, indeed, they ne'er cared for 
us yet ; suffer us to famish, and their store-houses cramm'd 
with grain ; make edicts for usury, to support usurers ; re- 
peal daily any wholesome Act established against the rich ; 
and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and 
restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will ; and 
there's all the love they bear us. 

Men. Either you must 
Confess yourselves wondrous malicious, 
Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you 
A pretty tale : it may be you have heard it ; 
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture 
To stale't 5 a little more. 

i Cit. Well, I'll hear it, sir : yet you must not think to 



4 Helms for helmsmen; as we have fife for fifer, trumpet for trumpeter, 
&c. 

5 Make it stale, common, or familiar. The Poet often uses stale thus, as 
in the well-known passage in Antony and Cleopatra ; "Age cannot wither 
her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." And in Julius Ccesar : " Were I 
a common laugher, or did use to stale with ordinary oaths my love." 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 41 

fob-off 6 our disgrace with a tale : but, an't please you, de- 
liver. 

Men. There was a time when all the body's members 
Rebell'd against the belly ; thus accused it : 
That only like a gulf it did remain 
I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, 
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing 
Like labour with the rest ; where 7 th' other instruments 
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 
And, mutually participant, did minister 
Unto the appetite and affection common 
Of the whole body. The belly answer'd, — 

1 Cit. Well, sir, 

What answer made the belly? 

Men. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile, 
Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus — 
For, look you, I may make the belly smile 
As well as speak — it tauntingly replied 
To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts 
That envied his receipt ; even so most fitly 
As you malign our Senators for that 
They are not such as you. 

1 Cit. Your belly's answer ? What ! 

The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye, 
The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, 
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter, 



6 Mrs. Quickly, in speaking of Falstaffs debt to her, 2 King Henry IV. t 
ii. I, uses this phrase in a little different form : " I have borne, and borne, 
and borne, and been fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, from this day 
to that, that it is a shame to be thought on." 

7 In the Poet's time, where was often used for whereas ; also, wherem 
fo'. where. 



42 CORIOLANUS. act I 

With other muniments and petty helps 
In this our fabric, if that they — 

Men. What then? — 

'Fore me, this fellow speaks ! — what then? what then? 

i Cit. — Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd, 
Who is the sink o' the body, — 

Men. Well, what then? 

i Cit. — The former agents, if they did complain, 
What could the belly answer? 

Men. I will tell you ; 

If you'll bestow a small — of what you've little — 
Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer. 

i Cit. Ye 're long about it. 

Men. Note me this, good friend ; 

Your most grave belly was deliberate, 
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd : 
True is it, my incorporate friends, quoth he, 
That I receive the general food at first, 
Which you do live upon ; and fit it is, 
Because I am the store-house and the shop 
Of the whole body : but, if you do remember, 
I send it through the rivers of your blood, 
Even to the Court, the heart, to th' seat o' the brain;* 
And, through the cranks and offices^ of man, 
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins 

8 According to the old philosophy, the heart was the seat of the under- 
standing; hence it is here called "the Court." So in a previous speech*: 
" The counsellor heart." 

9 Cranks are windings ; the meandering ducts of the human body. — 
Offices was used for rooms or apartments, and such is its meaning here. — 
The words nerve, vein, artery, and sinew are used very loosely, almost in- 
discriminately indeed, by Shakespeare : in fact they had not then got differ 
entiated to their present use. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 43 

From me receive that natural competency 

Whereby they live : and though that all at once, 

You, my good friends, — this says the belly, mark me, — 

i Cit. Ay, sir ; well, well. 

Men. Though all at once cannot 

See what I do deliver out to each, 
Yet I can make my audit up, that all 
Froi?i me do back receive the flour of all, 
And leave me but the bran. What say you to't? 10 

i Cit. It was an answer : how apply you this ? 

Men. Tne Senators of Rome are this good belly, 
And you the mutinous members : for, examine 
Their counsels and their cares ; digest things rightly 
Touching the weal o' the common ; you shall find, 
No public benefit which you receive 
But it proceeds or comes from them to you, 
And no way from yourselves. — What do you think, 
You, the great toe of this assembly ? 

i Cit. I the great toe ! why the great toe ? 

Men. For that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest, 
Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost : 
Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run, 11 

10 The fable of The Belly and the Members has been traced far back in 
antiquity. It is found in several ancient collections of yEsopian fables ; so 
that there is as much reason for making ^Esop the author of this as of many 
others that go in his name. Shakespeare was acquainted with a very spirited 
version of it in Camden's Remains ; but he was chiefly indebted for the 
matter to North's Plutarch. 

11 Rascal and in blood are terms of the forest, both here used equivocally. 
The meaning seems to be, " thou worthless scoundrel, though thou art in the 
worst plight for running of all this herd of plebeians, like a deer not in 
blood, thou takest the lead in this tumult in order to obtain some private 
advantage to thyself." " Worst n blood " has a secondary meaning of 
lowest in condition. 



44 CORIOLANUS. ACT i. 

Lead'st first to win some vantage. — 
But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs : 
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle ; 
The one side must have bale. 12 — 

Enter Caius Marcius. 

Hail, noble Marcius ! 

Mar. Thanks. — What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, 
That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, 
Make yourselves scabs ? 

i Cit. We have ever your good word. 

Mar. He that will give good words to ye will flatter 
Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs, 
That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you, 
The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, 
Where he should find you lions, finds you hares ; 
Where foxes, geese : you are no surer, no, 
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, 
Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is, 
To make him worthy whose offence subdues him, 
And curse that justice did it. 13 Who deserves greatness 
Deserves your hate ; and your affections are 
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 
Which would increase his evil. He that depends 
Upon your favours swims with fins of lead, 
And hews down oaks with rushes. Trust ye ? Hang ye ! 
With every minute you do change your mind ; 
And call him noble that Was now your hate, 

12 Bale is evil or mischief. The word is pure Saxon, and was becoming 
obsolete in Shakespeare's time. 

13 " Your virtue is to speak well of him whom his own offences have sub- 
jected to justice ; and to rail at those laws by which he was punished." 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 45 

Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter, 

That in these several places of the city 

You cry against the noble Senate, who, 

Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else 

Would feed on one another ? — What's their seeking ? 

Men. For corn at their own rates ; whereof, they say, 
The city is well stored. 

Mar. Hang 'em ! They say ! 

They'll sit by th' fire, 14 and presume to know 
What's done i' the Capitol ; who's like to rise, 
Who thrives, and who declines ; side factions, and give out 
Conjectural marriages ; making parties strong, 
And feebling such as stand not in their liking 
Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough ! 
Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, 15 
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry l6 
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high 
As I could pick 17 my lance. 

Men. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded ; 
For though abundantly they lack discretion, 
Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you, 
What says the other troop ? 

Mar. They are dissolved : hang 'em ! 

They said they were an-hungry ; sigh'd forth proverbs, 
That hunger broke stone walls ; that dogs must eat ; 

14 Fire is here a dissyllable. This and many other words, such as hour, 
power, given, &c, are used by the Poet as one or two syllables indifferently, 
to suit the metre. 

15 Ruth is pity or compassion : a word little used now, but its sense survives 
in ruthless. 

16 Quarry, or querre, signified slaughtered game of any kind ; so called 
from being deposited in a square enclosed space in royal hunting. 

17 Pick is an old form of pitch. See Henry VIII. , page 172, note 21. 



46 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT L 



That meat was made for mouths ; that the gods sent not 

Corn for the rich men only : with these shreds 

They vented their complainings ; which being answer'd, 

And a petition granted them, a strange one, — 

To break the heart of generosity, 18 

And make bold power look pale, — they threw their caps 

As they would hang them on the horns o' the Moon, 

Shouting their emulation. 19 

Men. What is granted them? 

Mar. Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms, 
Of their own choice : one's Junius Brutus, one 
Sicinius Velutus, and I know not — ' Sdeath ! 20 
The rabble should have first unroof 'd the city, 
Ere so prevail' d with me : it will in time 
Win upon power, and throw forth greater themes 
For insurrection's arguing. 21 

Men. This is strange. 

Mar. Go, get you home, you fragments ! 22 

Enter a Messenger, hastily. 

Mess. Where's Caius Marcius? 

Mar. Here : what's the matter? 

Mess. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms. 
Mar. I'm glad on't ; then we shall ha' means to vent 
Our musty superfluity. — See, our best elders ! 

18 Generosity, in the sense of its Latin original, for nobleness, high birth. 

19 Emulation, here, is said to mean factious contention. I should rather 
explain it partisan rivalry ; trying who should shout the loudest. 

20 'Sdeath / is a disguised or softened oath, from God's death. So we have 
'sblood, 'slight, 'sfoot, and zounds, all formed in the same way ; 'slight being 
from God's light, zounds from God's wounds, &c. 

21 That is, matter for insurrection to lay hold of, or work upon. So in 
King Henry V., iii. 1 : " And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument." 

22 Fragments is odds and ends, or, as we say, tag-rag. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 47 

Enter Cominius, Titus Lartius, and other Senators ; Junius 
Brutus and Sicinius Velutus. 

i Sen. Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us ; 
The Volsces are in arms. 

Mar. They have a leader, 

Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't. 
I sin in envying his nobility ; 
And, were I any thing but what I am, 
I'd wish me only he. 

Com. You've fought together. 

Mar. Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he 
Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make 
Only my wars with him : he is a lion 
That I am proud to hunt. 

i Sen. Then, worthy Marcius, 

Attend upon Cominius to these wars. 

Com. It is your former promise. 

Mar. Sir, it is ; 

And I am constant. — Titus Lartius, thou 
Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face. 
What, art thou stiff ? stand'st out ? 

Tit. No, Caius Marcius ; 

I'll lean upon one crutch, and fight with t'other, 
Ere stay behind this business. 

Men. O, true-bred ! 

i Sen. Your company to th' Capitol ; where, I know, 
Our greatest friends attend us. 

Tit. \_To Com.] Lead you on. — 

\To Mar.] Follow Cominius : we must follow you ; 
Right worthy you priority. 23 

23 You being right worthy of priority or precedence. 



4^ C0R10LANUS. ACT i. 

Com. Noble Marcius ! 

i Sen. \To the Citizens.] Hence to your homes ; be 
gone ! 

Mar. Nay, let them follow. 

The Volsces have much corn : take these rats thither 
To gnaw their garners. — Worshipful mutineers, 
Your valour puts well forth ; pray, follow. 

\_Exeunl all but Brutus and Sicenius. The 

Citizens steal away. 

Sic. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius ? 

Bru. He has no equal. 

Sic. When we were chosen tribunes for the people, — 

Bru. Mark'd you his lip and eyes ? 

Sic. Nay, but his taunts. 

Bru. Being moved, he will not spare to gird 24 the gods. 

Sic. Be-mock the modest Moon. 

Bru. The present war devour him ! He is grown 
Too proud to be so valiant. 25 

Sic. Such a nature, 

Tickled with good success, 26 disdains the shadow 
Which he treads on at noon : but I do wonder 
His insolence can brook to be commanded 
Under Cominius. 

Bru. Fame, at the which he aims, — 

In whom already he's well graced, — cannot 

24 A gird is a cut, a sarcasm, or stroke of satire. 

25 The first part of this speech is imprecative : " May the present war 
devour him! " that is, make an end of him. — The latter part is an instance 
of the infinitive used gerundively : " He is grown too proud of being so 
valiant." 

26 Success means, literally, that which follows something else. Hence it 
was formerly just as proper to say bad success as good success. Sequel and 
sequent are now used in much the same way. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 49 

Better be held, nor more attain' d, than by 
A place below the first : for what miscarries 
Shall be the general's fault, though he perform 
To th' utmost of a man ; and giddy censure 
Will then cry out of Marcius, O, if he 
Had borne the business ! 

Sic. Besides, if things go well, 

Opinion, that so sticks on Marcius, shall 
Of his demerits 27 rob Cominius. 

Bru. Come : 

Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius, 
Though Marcius earn'd them not ; and all his faults 
To Marcius shall be honours, though, indeed, 
In aught he merit not. 

Sic. Let's hence, and hear 

How the dispatch is made ; and in what fashion, 
More than his singularity, 28 he goes 
Upon this present action. 

Bru. Let's along. \_Exeun , 

Scene II. — Corioli. The Senate-House. 

Enter Tullus Aufidius and certain Senators. 

1 Sen. So, your opinion is, Aufidius, 
That they of Rome are enter'd in x our counsels, 
And know how we proceed. 

27 Demerits and merits had the same meaning. So in Cavendish's Lift 
of Wolsey : "I have not promoted you to condign preferments according 
to your demerits." See Othello, page 58, note 8. 

28 That is, in what style or character other than his usual assumption, or 
putting on airs, of superiority. Spoken sarcastically. 

1 In for into ; the two being often used indiscriminately. 



50 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

Auf. Is it not yours ? 

What ever hath been thought on in this State, 
That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome 
Had circumvention ? 2 'Tis not four days gone 
Since I heard thence ; these are the words : I think 
I have the letter here ; yes, here it is : 

[Reads.] They've pressed 2, a power, but it is not known 

Whether for east or west: the dearth is great; 

The people mutinous; and it is rumour 'd, 

Cominius, Marcius your old enemy, — 

Who is of Ro?ne worse hated than of you, — 

And Titus Lartius, a ?nost valiant Roman, 

These three lead on this preparation 

Whither 'tis bent; most likely 'tis for you: 

Consider of it. 

i Sen. Our army's in the field : 

We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready 
To answer us. 

Auf Nor did you think it folly 

To keep your great pretences 4 veil'd till when 
They needs must show themselves ; which in the hatching, 
It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery 
We shall be shorten 'd in our aim ; which was, 

2 That is, underhand intelligence, or knowledge got by circumvention. 

3 The use oi press' d in this place is well explained by a passage in North's 
Plutarch : " The common people, being set on a broile and bravery with 
these words, would not appeare when the Consuls called their names by a 
bill, to presse them for the warres. Martius then, who was now growne to 
great credit, and a stout man besides, rose up and openly spake against 
these flattering Tribunes : but to the warres the people by no means would 
be brought or constrained." 

4 Pretences is intent 'ions or purposes. See Macbeth, page 93, note 52. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 5 1 

To take-in 5 many towns, ere, almost, Rome 
Should know we were afoot. 

2 Sen. Noble Aufidius, 

Take your commission ; hie you to your bands : 
Let us alone to guard Corioli. 
If they set down before 's, for their remove 
Bring up your army ; 6 but, I think, you'll find 
They've not prepar'd for us. 

Auf. O, doubt not that ; 

I speak from certainties. Nay, more ; 
Some parcels of their power are forth already, 
And only hitherward. I leave your Honours. 
If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet, 
'Tis sworn between us, we shall ever strike 
Till one can do no more. 7 

All. The gods assist you ! 

Auf. And keep your Honours safe ! 

i Sen. Farewell. 

2 Sen. Farewell. 

All. Farewell. \_Exeunt. 

Scene III. — Rome. A Room in Marcius's House. 

Enter Volumnia and Virgilia; they sit down on two low 

stools, and sew. 

Vol. I pray you, daughter, sing ; or express yourself in a 
more comfortable 1 sort : if my son were my husband, I 

5 To take-in was used for to subdue, to conquer. 

6 " If the Romans besiege us, bring up your army to remove them." 

7 Keep on striking till one hath struck his last. 

1 Comfortable for comforting, that is, cheerful; the passive form with the 
active sense. Repeatedly so. See King Lear, page 91, note 36. 



52 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won 
honour than in the embracements where he would show 
most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied, and 
the only son of my womb ; when youth with comeliness 
pluck'd all gaze his way ; when, for a day of kings' entreat- 
ies, a mother should not sell him an hour from her behold- 
ing ; I — considering how honour would become such a 
person ; that it was no better than picture-like to hang by 
the wall, if renown made it not stir — was pleased to let him 
seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war 
I sent him ; from whence he return'd, his brows bound 
with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy 
at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing 
he had proved himself a man. 

Vir. But had he died in the business, madam, how then ? 

Vol. Then his good report should have been my son ; I 
therein would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely : 
Had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none less 
dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather have 
eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously 
surfeit out of action. 

Enter a Gentlewoman. 

Gent. Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you. 

Vir. Beseech you, give me leave to retire 2 myself. 

Vol. Indeed, you shall not. 
Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum ; 
I see him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair ; 
As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him : 
Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus, 
Come on, you cowards / you were got in fear, 

2 Retire in the sense of withdraw ; a frequent usage. 



SCENE in. CORIOLANUS. 53 

Though you were born in Rome : his bloody brow 
With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes, 
Like to a harvest-man, that's task'd to mow 
Or all, or lose his hire. 

Vir. His bloody brow ! O Jupiter, no blood S 

Vol. Away, you fool ! it more becomes a man 
Than gilt 3 his trophy : the breasts of Hecuba, 
When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier 
Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood 
At Grecian swords, contemning. 4 — Tell Valeria 
We're fit to bid her welcome. [Exit Gent 

Vir. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius ! 

Vol. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee, 
And tread upon his neck. 

Re-enter Gentlewoman with Valeria and her Usher. 

Val. My ladies both, good day to you. 

Vol. Sweet madam. 

Vir. I am glad to see your ladyship. 

Val. How do you both? you're manifest house-keepers. 5 
What are you sewing here ? A fine spot, 6 in good faith. 
How does your little son ? 

Vir. I thank your ladyship ; well, good madam. 

Vol. He had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, 
than look upon his schoolmaster. 

Val. O' my word, the father's son : I'll swear, 'tis a very 
pretty boy. O' my troth, I look'd upon him o' Wednesday 

3 Gilt was used for gold or gilding. So in King Henry F.,iv. 3: "Our 
gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd." 

4 Contemning for contemptuously or in contempt. 

5 House-keepers for home-keepers or stayers-at-home. 

6 A handsome spot of embroidery. We often hear of spotted muslin. 



54 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

half an hour together : 'has such a confirm'd countenance. 
I saw him run after a gilded butterfly ; and, when he caught 
it, he let it go again ; and after it again ; and over and over 
he comes, and up again ; catch'd it again : and, whether his 
fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth, and 
tear it ; O, I warrant, how he mammock'd 7 it ! 

Vol. One on's father's moods. 

Val. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child. 



Vir. A crack, 8 madam. 

Val. Come, lay aside your stitchery ; I must have you 
play the idle huswife with me this afternoon. 

Vir. No, good madam ; I will not out of doors. 

Val. Not out of doors ! 

Vol. She shall, she shall. 

Vir. Indeed, no, by your patience ; I'll not over the 
threshold till my lord return from the wars. 

Val. Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably : come, 
you must go visit the good lady that lies in. 

Vir. I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with 
my prayers ; but I cannot go thither. 

Vol. Why, I pray you ? 

Vir. Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love. 

Val. You would be another Penelope : yet, they say, all 
the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full 
of moths. Come; I would your cambric were sensible 9 as 
your finger, that you might leave pricking it for pity. Come, 
you shall go with us. 

7 To mammock is to tear or cut in pieces. 

8 A crack is a sprightly forward boy. So in Shallow's account of the 
boy Jack Falstaff, 2 Henry IV., iii. 2 : " I saw him break Skogan's head at 
the court gate, when he was a crack, not thus high." 

9 Sensible for sensitive, or susceptible of fain. See Tempest, page 83, note a6. 



scene iv. CORIOLANUS. 55 

Vir. No, good madam, pardon me ; indeed, I will not forth. 
Val. In, truth, la, go with me ; and I'll tell you excellent 
news of your husband. 

Vir. O, good madam, there can be none yet. 

Val. Verily, I do not jest with you ; there came news 
from him last night. 

Vir. Indeed, madam? 

Val. In earnest, it's true ; I heard a Senator speak it. 
Thus it is : The Volsces have an army forth ; against whom 
Cominius the general is gone, with one part of our Roman 
power : your lord and Titus Lartius are set down before their 
city Corioli ; they nothing doubt prevailing, and to make it 
brief wars. This is true, on mine honour ; and so, I pray, 
go with us. 

Vir. Give me excuse, good madam ; I will obey you in 
every thing hereafter. 

Vol. Let her alone, lady : as she is now, she will but dis- 
ease our better mirth. 

Val. In troth, I think she would. — Fare you well, then. — 
Come, good sweet lady. — Pr'ythee, Virgilia, turn thy sol- 
emness out o' door, and go along with us. 

Vir. No, at a word, madam ; indeed, I must not. I wish 
you much mirth. 

Val. Well, then, farewell. [Exeunt. 



Scene IV. — Before Corioli. 

Enter, with drum and colours, Marcius, Titus Lartius, Offi- 
cers, and Soldiers. 

Mar. Yonder comes news : a wager they have met. 
Lart. My horse to yours, no. 



56 CORIOLANUS. ACT I, 

Mar. 'Tis done. 

Lart. Agreed. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mar: Say, has our general met the enemy ? 

Mess. They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet. 1 

Lart. So, the good horse is mine. 

Mar. I'll buy him of you. 

Lart. No, I'll nor sell nor give him ; lend you him I will 
For half a hundred years. — Summon the town. 

Mar. How far off lie these armies ? 

Mess. Within this mile and half. 

Mar. Then shall we hear their 'larum, 2 and they ours. — 
Now, Mars, I pr'ythee, make us quick in work, 
That we with smoking swords may march from hence, 
To help our fielded friends ! 3 — Come, blow thy blast/ — 

They sound a parley. Enter, on the walls, some Senators and 

others. 

Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls ? 

i Sen. No, nor a man that fears you more than he • 
That's lesser than a little. \Drums afar off.~] Hark, our 

drums 
Are bringing forth our youth ! we'll break our walls, 
Rather than they shall pound us up : our gates, 
Which yet seem shut, we have but pimrd with rushes ; 
They'll open of themselves. [Alarum, afar off."] Hark 

you, far off ! 
There is Aufidius ; list, what work he makes 

1 They lie in sight of each other, but have not yet given the signal of 
battle. See Antony and Cleopatra, page 72, note 23. 

2 Alarm or alarum is, literally, all arm ; the old cry, To arms! 

3 Meaning, our friends who are in the field of battle. 



SCENE IV. CORIOLANUS. 57 

Amongst your cloven army. 

Mar. O, they're at it ! 

Lart. Their noise be our instruction. — Ladders, ho ! 

The Volsces enter and pass over. 

Mar. They fear us not, but issue forth their city. 
Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight 
With hearts more proof 4 than shields. — Advance, brave 

Titus : 
They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts, 
Which makes me sweat with wrath. — Come on, my fellows : 
He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce, 
And he shall feel mine edge. 

Alarwn ; and exeunt Romans and Volsces, fighting. The 
Romans are beaten back to their trenches. Re-enter Mar- 
cius. 

Mar. All the contagion of the south light on you, 
You shames of Rome ! you herd of — Boils and plagues 
Plaster you o'er ; that you may be abhorr'd 
Further than seen, and one infect another 
Against the wind a mile ! You souls of geese, 
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run 
From slaves that apes would beat ! Pluto and Hell ! 
All hurt behind ; backs red, and faces pale 
With flight and agued fear ! Mend, and charge home, 
Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe, 
And make my wars on you : look to't. Come on : 
If you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives, 
As they us to our trenches. Follow me. 

4 Proof, as we still say fire-proof, or reason-proof ; proof against fire, or 
against reason. The word is very common in the language of military 
engineering. 



58 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT I. 



Another alarum. The Volsces and Romans re-enter, and 
the fight is refiewed. The Volsces retire into Corioli^ and 
Marcius follows them to the gates. 

So, now the gates are ope. Now prove good seconds : 
Tis for the followers fortune widens them, 
Not for the fliers : mark me, and do the like. 

[Enters the gates. 

i Sol. Fool-hardiness ; not I. 

2 Sol. Nor I. [Marcius is shut in. 

i Sol. See, they have shut him in. 

All. To th' pot, 5 I warrant him. \_Alarum continues. 

Re-enter Titus Lartius. 

Lart. What is become of Marcius ? 

All. Slain, sir, doubtless. 

i Sol. Following the fliers at the very heels, 
With them he enters ; who, upon the sudden, 
Clapp'd-to their gates : he is himself alone, 
To answer all the city. 

Lart. O noble fellow ! 

Who, sensible, 6 outdares his senseless sword, 
And, when it bows, stands up ! Thou art lost, Marcius : 
A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art, 
Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier 
Even to Cato's wish, 7 not fierce and terrible 

5 That is, to the pit of destruction. " Gone to the pot" is still current, 
though in rather vulgar language. 

6 Sensible is having sensation. See page 54, note 9. There is a similar 
thought in Sidney's Arcadia : " Their very armour by piece-meale fell away 
from them ; yet their flesh abode the wounds constantly, as though it were 
less sensible of smart than the senseless armour." 

7 So in North's Plutarch : " For he was even such another as Cato would 
have a souldier and a captaine to be; not only terrible and fierce to lay 



SCENE V. 



CORIOLANUS. 59 



Only in strokes ; but, with thy grim looks and 
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds > 
Thou madest thine enemies shake, as if the world 
Were feverous and did tremble. 

Re-enter Marcius, bleeding, assaulted by the Enemy. 

i Sol. Look, sir. 

Lart. O, 'tis Marcius ! 

Let's fetch him off, or make remain 8 alike. 

[^ They fight, and all enter the city. 

Scene V. — Within Corioli. A Street. 

Enter certain Romans, with spoils. 

i Rom. This will I carry to Rome. 

2 Rom. And I this. 

j Rom. A murrain on't ! I took this for silver. 

\_Alarum continues still afar off. 

Enter Marcius and Titus Lartius with a Trumpeter. 

Mar. See here these movers that do prize their hours x 
At a crack'd drachma ! Cushions, leaden spoons, 
Irons of a doit, 2 doublets that hangmen would 
Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves, 

about him, but to make the enemy afeard with the sound of his voice and 
grimnesse of his countenance." Cato was not born till some 255 years 
after the death of Coriolanus. The Poet may have been led into the ana- 
chronism by not observing the difference between historical narrative and 
dramatic representation. 

8 Make remain sounds odd ; but Shakespeare has many instances of the 
word used in like manner. 

1 Hours is here put for time, the most precious of all things in war. 

2 Pieces of iron not worth a copper. 



60 CORIOLANUS. ACT L 

Ere yet the fight be done, pack up : down with them ! 
And hark, what noise the general makes ! To him ! 
There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius, 
Piercing our Romans : then, valiant Titus, take 
Convenient numbers to make good the city ; 
Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste 
To help Cominius. 

Lart. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st ; 

Thy exercise hath been too violent for 
A second course of fight. 

Mar. Sir, praise me not ; 

My work hath yet not warm'd me : fare you well. 
The blood I drop is rather physical 3 
Than dangerous to me : to Aufidius thus 
I will appear, and fight. 

Lart. Now the fair goddess, Fortune, 

Fall deep in love with thee ; and her great charms 
Misguide th' opposers' swords ! Bold gentleman, 
Prosperity be thy page ! 

Mar. Thy friend no less 

Than those she placeth highest ! 4 So, farewell. 

Lart. Thou worthiest Marcius ! — [Exit Marcius. 

Go, sound thy trumpet in the market-place ; 
Call thither all the officers o' the town, 
Where they shall know our mind : away ! [Exeunt. 

3 Physical for wholesome or medicinal. See Julius Ccesar, p. 86, note 52. 

4 The meaning probably is, " Fortune, or prosperity, be thy friend no less 
than she is the friend of those whom she holds dearest." 



Scene vi. CORIOLANUS. 6 1 

Scene VI. — Near the Camp <?/" Cominius. 

Enter Cominius and Forces, retreating. 

Com. Breathe you, my friends : well fought ; we are 
come off 
Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands 
Nor cowardly in retire : believe me, sirs, 
We shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck, 
By interims and conveying gusts 1 we've heard 
The charges of our friends. — Ye Roman gods, 
Lead their successes as we wish our own, 
That both our powers, with smiling fronts encountering, 
May give you thankful sacrifice ! — 

Enter a Messenger. 

Thy news ? 

Mess. The citizens of Corioli have issued, 
And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle : 
I saw our party to their trenches driven, 
And then I came away. 

Com. Though thou speak'st truth, 

Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since ? 

Mess. Above an hour, my lord. 

Com. 'Tis not a mile ■ briefly, we heard their drums : 
How couldst thou in a mile confound 2 an hour, 
And bring thy news so late ? 

Mess. Spies of the Volsces 

1 Now and then, as gusts of wind conveyed the noise. 

2 To confound for to consume or spend. Repeatedly so. — The sense of 
the preceding clause appears to be, " in brief, the distance is so short, that 
we heard their drums." 



62 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

Held me in chase, that I was forced to wheel 
Three or four miles about ; else had I, sir, 
Half an hour since brought my report. 

Com. Who's yonder, 

That does appear as he were flay'd ? O gods ! 
He has the stamp of Marcius ; and I have 
Before-time seen him thus. 

Mar. [Within. .] Come I too late? 

Com. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor, 
More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue 
From every meaner man's. 

Enter Marcius. 

Mar. Come I too late ? 

Com. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others, 
But mantled in your own. 

Mar. O, let me clip ye 

In arms as sound as when I woo'd ; in heart 
As merry as when our nuptial day was done, 
And tapers burn'd to bedward ! 

Com. Flower of warriors, 

How is't with Titus Lartius ? 

Mar. As with a man busied about decrees : 
Condemning some to death, and some to exile ; 
Ransoming him or pitying, 3 threatening th' other ; 
Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, 
Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, 
To let him slip at will. 

Com. Where is that slave 

3 Taking ransom of one, or letting him go for pity ; treating with some 
of the captives for the price of their freedom , or mercifully discharging them 
without pay. 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 63 

Which told me they had beat you to your trenches ? 
Where is he ? call him hither. 

Mar. Let him alone ; 

He did inform the truth : but for our gentlemen, 
The common file — a plague ! — tribunes for them ! — 
The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge 
From rascals worse than they. 

Com. But how prevaiPd you ? 

Mar. Will the time serve to tell ? I do not think so. 
Where is the enemy? are you lords o' the field? 
If not, why cease you till you are so ? 

Com. Marcius, 

We have at disadvantage fought, and did 
Retire, to win our purpose. 

Mar. How lies their battle? 4 know you on which side 
They've placed their men of trust ? 

Com. As I guess, Marcius, 

Their bands i' the vaward are the Antiates, 5 
Of their best trust ; o'er them Aufidius, 
Their very heart of hope. 

Mar. I do beseech you, 

By all the battles wherein we have fought, 
By th' blood we've shed together, by the vows 
We've made to endure friends, that you directly 
Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates ; 
And that you not delay the present, 6 but, 



4 Battle was often used for army ; especially of an army drawn up in 
battle-array, or an embattled army. 

5 The vaward is the vanguard, that is, the front, where the best soldiers 
would naturally be placed. — Shakespeare uses Antiates as a trisyllable, as 
if it had been written Antlats. 

6 Meaning the present business ; that which craves instant dispatch. 



64 CORIOLANUS. ACT 1. 

Filling the air with swords advanced and darts, 
We prove this very hour. 

Com. Though I could wish 

You were conducted to a gentle bath, 
And balms applied to you, yet dare I never 
Deny your asking : take your choice of those 
That best can aid your action. 

Mar. Those are they 

That most are willing. — If any such be here — 
As it were sin to doubt — that love this painting 
Wherein you see me smear'd ; if any fear 
Lesser his person 7 than an ill report ; 
If any think brave death outweighs bad life, 
And that his country's dearer than himself; 
Let him alone, or so many so minded, 
Wave thus, t' express his disposition, 
And follow Marcius. 

\_They all shout, and wave their swords ; take him 
up in their arms, and cast up their caps. 
Go we along ; make you a sword of me. 
If these shows be not outward, which of you 
But is four Volsces ? none of you but is 
Able to bear against the great Aufidius 
A shield as hard as his. A certain number, 
Though thanks to all, must I select : the rest 
Shall bear the business in some other fight, 
As cause will be obey'd. 8 Please you to march ; 
And I shall quickly draw out my command, 

7 That is, fear less for his person. Often so. See King Richard the Third. 
page 51, note 21. 

8 As occasion shall require. Cause and occasion readily interchange their 
senses ; and the usage is common in all sorts of speech. 



SCENE VIII. CORIOLANUS. 65 

Which men are best inclined. 9 

Com. March on, my fellows : 

Make good this ostentation, 10 and you shall 
Divide in all with us. \_Exeunt. 

Scene VII. — The Gates of Corioli. 

Titus Lartius, having set a guard upon Corioli, going with 
drum and trumpet toward Cominius and Caius Marcius, 
ejtters with a Lieutenant, a party of Soldiers, and a 
Scout. 

Lart. So, let the ports 1 be guarded : keep your duties, 
As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch 
Those centuries 2 to our aid ; the rest will serve 
For a short holding : if we lose the field, 
We cannot keep the town. 

Lieu. Fear not our care, sir. 

Lart. Hence, and shut your gates upon's. — 
Our guider, come ; to th' Roman camp conduct us. 

\_Exeunt. 

Scene VIII. — A Field of Battle between the Roman and 
the Volscian Camps. 

Alarum. Enter, from opposite sides, Marcius and Aufidius. 

Mar. I'll fight with none but thee ; for I do hate thee 
Worse than a promise -breaker. 

9 The order is, apparently, for the army to march along by him ; he the 
while selecting such as seem fittest for the enterprise. 

1° This showing or display of courage. See Much Ado, page 97, note 9. 

1 The ports are the gates. Like the Latin porta. 

2 Centuries are companies of a hundred men each. 



66 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

Auf. We hate alike : 

Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor 
More than thy fame I envy. Fix thy foot. 

Mar. Let the first budger die the other's slave, 
And the gods doom him after ! 

Auf. If I fly, Marcius, 

Halloo me like a hare. 

Mar. Within these three hours, Tullus, 

Alone I fought in your Corioli walls, 
And made what work I pleased : 'tis not my blood 
Wherein thou see'st me mask'd ; for thy revenge 
Wrench up thy power to th' highest. • 

Auf. Wert thou the Hector 

That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny, 3 
Thou shouldst not 'scape me here. — 

\_They fight, and certain Volsces come to 
the aid ofAvFiDWS. 
Officious, and not valiant, you have shamed me 
In your condemned seconds. 4 

[Exeunt fighting, driven in by Marcius. 

Scene IX. — The Roman Camp. 

Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter, from 
one side, Cominius and Romans ; from the other side, 
Marcius, with his arm in a scarf, and other Romans. 

Com. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work, 
Thou'lt not believe thy deeds : but I'll report it, 

3 The whip or scourge that your boasted progenitors were possessed of. 
This use of progeny for progenitors is, I believe, singular. 

4 Condemned seconds is help condemned as worthless or unavailing. The 
use ot to second for to help is very common. 



SCENE IX. 



CORIOLANUS. 6? 



Where Senators shall mingle tears with smiles ; 

Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug, 

I' the end admire ; where ladies shall be frighted, 

And, gladly quaked, 1 hear more ; where the dull tribunes, 

That, with the fusty plebeians, 2 hate thine honours, 

Shall say, against their hearts, We thank the gods 

Our Rome hath such a soldier / 

Yet earnest thou to a morsel of this feast, 3 

Having fully dined before. 

Enter Titus Lartius, with his power, from the pursuit. 

Lart. O general, 

Here is the steed, we the caparison : 
Hadst thou beheld — 

Mar. Pray now, no more : my mother, 

Who has a charter 4 to extol her blood, 
When she does praise me grieves me. I have done 
As you have done, — that's what I can ; induced 
As you have been, — that's for my country : 
He that has but effected his good will 
Hath overta'en mine act. 

Com. You shall not be 

The grave of your deserving ; Rome must know 
The value of her own : 'twere a concealment 
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement, 
To hide your doings ; and to silence that 

1 " Gladly quaked" is gladly made to tremble, or to shake, with fright. 

2 Shakespeare repeatedly uses plebeians with the first syllable accented, 
as if it were spelt plebeans. 

3 We should say "this morsel of a feast." The meaning is, that what 
the hero has done here is but as a morsel, compared to the full meal of 
fighting which he had before gone through at Corioli. 

4 Charter is special privilege or admitted right. 



68 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd, 
Would seem but modest : 5 therefore, I beseech you — ■ 
In sign of what you are, not to reward 
What you have done — before our army hear me. 

Mar. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart 
To hear 6 themselves remember'd. 

Com. Should they not, 

Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude, 
And tent 7 themselves with death. Of all the horses, — 
Whereof we've ta'en good, and good store, — of all 
The treasure in this field achieved and city, 
We render you the tenth ; to be ta'en forth, 
Before the common distribution, at 
Your only choice. 

Mar. I thank you, general ; 

But cannot make my heart consent to take 
A bribe to pay my sword : I do refuse it ; 
And stand upon my common part with those 
That have beheld the doing. 

\_A long flourish. They all cry, Marcius ! Marcius ! 
cast up their caps and lances: Cominius and 
Lartius stand bare. 

Mar. May these same instruments, which you profane, 
Never sound more ! Shall drums and trumpets, when 
I' the field, prove flatterers ? Let Courts and cities be 
Made all of false-faced soothing, where steel grows 



5 An irregular construction ; but the meaning is, " It were no less than a 
slander, to pass silently over that prowess which might be praised to the 
utmost, and still the praise would come short of the truth." 

6 To hear is equivalent to at hearing. See page 48, note 25. 

7 To tent a wound is, properly, to probe it : here the word is used in the 
general sense of to dress, or to heal. 



SCENE IX. CORIOLANUS. 69 

Soft as the parasite's silk : let them be made 

An overture for th' wars. 8 No more, I say ! 

For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled, 

Or foil'd some debile wretch, — which, without note, 

Here's many else have done, — you shout me forth 

In acclamations hyperbolical ; 

As if I loved my little should be dieted 

In praises sauced with lies. 

Com. Too modest are you ; 

More cruel to your good report than grateful 
To us that give you truly : by your patience, 
If 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you — 
Like one that means his proper harm — in manacles, 
Then reason 9 safely with you. — Therefore, be't known, 
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius 
Wears this war's garland : in token of the which, 
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him, 
With all his trim belonging ; and from this time, 
For what he did before Corioli, call him, 
With all th' applause and clamour of the host, 
Caius Marcius Coriolanus. — Bear 
Th' addition nobly ever ! 

[Flourish. T?'umpets sozmd and drums. 



8 That is, let drums and trumpets be used in making introductions or 
preludes to battle. As to the meaning of the whole passage, it may be 
observed that the speaker is referring to the " long flourish " which has 
just been made with the instruments in honour of what he has done. This 
he regards as a profanation : he would have drums and trumpets used only 
for sounding incitements to valiant action, not for sounding compliments 
and flatteries on the battle-field. All such " false-faced soothing " he would 
have confined to " Courts and cities," where steel itself, like silk, is used for 
ornament, not for fighting. 

9 To reason, as the word is here used, is to talk or converse. Often so. 



yO CORIOLANUS. ACT L 

All. Caius Marcius Coriolanus ! 

Cor. I will go wash ; 
And, when my face is fair, you shall perceive 
Whether I blush or no : howbeit, I thank you. — 
I mean to stride your steed ; and at all times, 
To undercrest your good addition 
To th' fairness of my power. 10 

Com. So, to our tent ; 

Where, ere we do repose us, we will write 
To Rome of our success. — You, Titus Lartius, 
Must to Corioli back : send us to Rome 
The best, with whom we may articulate, 11 
For their own good and ours. 

Lart. I shall, my lord. 

Cor. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now 
Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg 
Of my lord general. 

Com. Take't; 'tis yours. What is't? 

Cor. I sometime lay, here in Corioli, 
At a poor man's house ; he used me kindly. 
He cried to me ; I saw him prisoner ; 
But then Aufidius was within my view, 
And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity : I request you 
To give my poor host freedom. 12 

10 Addition is title ; the monumental surname just conferred upon him. 
To undercrest is to sustain, to bear ; as a man bears his helmet, or the dis- 
tinctive badge worn upon it. So that the meaning is, " I will support, as fairly 
as I can, the honourable distinction you have bestowed upon me." . 

11 The chief men of Corioli, with whom we may enter into articles. Bul- 
lokar has the word " articulate, to set down articles, or conditions of agree- 
ment." We still retain the word capitulate, which anciently had nearly the 
same meaning, namely, " To article, or agree upon articles." 

12 The Poet found this incident thus related in Plutarch ; " Onely this 



SCENE X. CORIOLANUS. 71 

Com. O, well begg'd ! 

Were he the butcher of my son, he should 
Be free as is the wind. — Deliver him, Titus. 

Lart. Marcius, his name ? 

Cor. By Jupiter, forgot ! 

I'm weary ; yea, my memory is tired. — 
Have we no wine here ? 

Com. Go we to our tent : 

The blood upon your visage dries ; 'tis time 
It should be look'd to : come. \_Exeunt. 

Scene X. — The Camp of the Volsces. 

A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius bloody, with 
two or three Soldiers. 

Auf. The town is ta'en ! 

1 Sol. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition. 

Auf. Condition ! 
I would I were a Roman ; for I cannot, 
Being a Volsce, be that I am. 1 Condition ! 
What good condition can a treaty find 
I' the part that is at mercy? — Five times, Marcius, 
I've fought with thee ; so often hast thou beat me ; 
And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter 

grace, said he, I crave, and beseech you to grant me : Among the Volsces 
there is an old friend and hoast of mine, an honest wealthy man, and now a 
prisoner ; who, living before in great wealth in his owne countrey, liveth now 
a poore prisoner in the hands of his enemies ; and yet, notwithstanding all 
this his misery and misfortune, it would do me great pleasure, if I could 
save him from this one danger, to keepe him from being sold as a slave." 

1 " If I were a Roman, I could love Marcius as a compatriot and friend; 
but, being a Volsce, I cannot remain true to myself; my hatred of him as 
an enemy is transforming me from what I rightly am into a villain." 



72 CORIOLANUS. ACT I. 

As often as we eat. — By th' elements, 

If e'er again I meet him beard to beard, 

He's mine, or I am his : mine emulation 

Hath not that honour in't it had ; for, where 2 

I thought to crush him in an equal force, 

True sword to sword, I'll poach 3 at him some way, 

Or wrath or craft may get him. 

i Sol. He's the Devil. 

Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour, poi- 
son'd 
With only suffering stain by him, for him 
Shall fly out of itself : 4 nor sleep nor sanctuary, 
Being naked, sick ; nor fane nor Capitol, 
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice, 
Embankments all of fury, shall lift up 
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst 
My hate to Marcius : where I find him, were it 
At home, upon my brother's guard, 5 even there, 
Against the hospitable canon, 6 would I 

2 Where for whereas again. See page 41, note 7. 

3 To poach is to thrust at with a sharp-pointed instrument. Thus in 
Carew's Survey of Cornwall, speaking of fish : " They use to poche them 
with an instrument somewhat like a salmon-speare." 

4 ■« ]y[y valour, to reach his life, shall lose its nature, cease to be generous 
in respect of time and means." — In the next line, the meaning is, "he being 
naked, sick." 

5 That is, in my own house under my brother's protection. — Upon this 
speech of Aufidius, Coleridge remarks as follows: " I have such deep faith 
in Shakespeare's heart-lore, that I take for granted that this is in nature ; 
although I cannot in myself discover any germ of possible feeling, which 
could wax and unfold itself into such a sentiment. However, I perceive 
that in this speech is meant to be contained a prevention of shock at the 
after-change in Aufidius' character." 

6 " The hospitable canon " is the law or obligation of hospitality. In the 
Roman code of morals, the person of a guest was sacred. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 71 

Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city ; 
Learn how 'tis held ; and what they are that must 
Be hostages for Rome. 

i Sol. Will not you go ? 

Auf. I am attended 7 at the cypress grove : I pray you, — 
'Tis south the city mills, — bring me word thither 
How the world goes, that to the pace of it 
I may spur on my journey. 

i Sol. I shall, sir. [Exeunt 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — Rome. A public Place. 
Enter Menenius, Sicinius, and Brutus. 

Men. The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night. 

Bru. Good or bad ? 

Men. Not according to the prayer of* the people, for they 
love not Marcius. 

Sic. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. 

Men. Pray you, whom does the wolf love ? 

Sic. The lamb. 

Men. Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would 
the noble Marcius. 

Bru. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. 

Men. He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You 
two are old men : tell me one thing that I shall ask you. 

Both. Well, sir. 

7 Attended here means waited for. See Cymbeline, page 152, note 36. 



74 CORIOLANUS. ACT IL 

Men. In what enormity is Marcius poor in, 1 that you two 
have not in abundance ? 

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all. 

Sic. Especially in pride. 

Bru. And topping 2 all others in boasting. 

Men. This is strange now. Do you two know how you 
are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand 
file? do you? 

Both. Why, how are we censured? 

Men. Because you talk of pride now, — will you not be 
angry? 

Both. Well, well, sir, well. 

Men. Why, 'tis no great matter ; for a very little thief of 
occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience : give your 
•dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures j at 
the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. 
You blame Marcius for being proud ? 

Bru. We do it not alone, sir. 

Men. I know you can do very little alone ; for your helps 
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single : 3 
your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You 
talk of pride : O that you could turn your eyes toward the 
napes of your necks, 4 and make but an interior survey of 
your good selves ! O that you could ! 

Bru. What then, sir? 

Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmerit- 



1 This doubling of the preposition was common. See Romeo and Juliet, 
page 66, note 18. 

2 To top is to surpass ; a frequent usage. See Macbeth, page 137, note 10. 

3 The Poet repeatedly uses single for weak or feeble. 

4 Alluding to the fable, that every man has a bag hanging before him, in 
which he puts his neighbour's faults ; and another behind, for his own. 



SCENE I. 



CORIOLANUS. 75 



ing, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in 
Rome. 

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. 

Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one 
that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber 
in't ; 5 said to be something imperfect in favouring the thirst 
complaint ; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion ; 
one that converses more with the latter end of the night than 
with the forehead of the morning : 6 what I think I utter, and 
spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such weals- 
men as you are, — I cannot call you Lycurguses, — if the drink 
you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face 
at it. I cannot say your Worships have deliver'd the matter 
well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part 
of your syllables : and though I must be content to bear 
with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie 
deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this 
in the map of my microcosm, 7 follows it that I am known 
well enough too ? what harm can your bisson 8 conspectuities 
glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too ? 

5 We have a similar expression in Lovelace's song, To Althea,from Prison: 

When flowing cups run swiftly round, 

With no allaying Thames ; 
Our careless heads with roses bound, 

Our hearts with loyal flames. 

6 Rather a late lier-down than an early riser. So in Love's Labours Lost: 
"In the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon." 

7 This word is well explained in Raleigh's History of the World: "Be- 
cause, in the little frame of man's body, there is a representation of the 
universal, and (by allusion) a participation of all the parts there, therefore 
man was called micro cosmos, or the little world!' 

8 Bisson is an old word for blind. So in Udal, St. Mark, viii. : " Thys 
manne was not purblynde, or a lyttle appayred and decayed in syght, but 



y6 CORIOLANUS. ACT IL 

Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. 

Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. 
You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs : 9 you wear 
out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between 
an orange-wife and a fosset-seller ; and then rejourn the con- 
troversy of three-pence to a second day of audience. When 
you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you 
chance to be pinch'd with the colic, you make faces like 
mummers ; set up the bloody flag against all patience ; 10 and 
dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your 
hearing : all the peace you make in their cause is, calling 
both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones. 

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a per- 
fecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the 
Capitol. 

Men. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall 
encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. 11 When you 
speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of 
your beards ; and your beards deserve not so honourable a 
grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entomb'd in 
an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is 
proud ; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your prede- 
cessors since Deucalion ; though peradventure some of the 
best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den 12 to your 

as bysome as was possible to be." The word was variously spelt bizend, 
beesen, bison. It is hardly needful to add that " bisson conspectuities" is a 
humorous substitute for blind eyes. See Hamlet, page 119, note 83. 

9 For their obeisance; called making a leg. See The First Part of King 
Henry the Fourth, page 114, note 47. 

10 Declare war against patience. 

11 So in Much Ado about Nothing : " Courtesy itself must convert to 
disdain, if you come in her presence." 

12 God-den is an old colloquialism for good even ox good day. 



SCENE I. 



CORIOLANUS. 77 



Worships : more of your conversation would infect my brain, 
being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians : I will be bold 
to take my leave of you. — ■ [Brutus and Sicinius reth-e. 

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, a?id Valeria, with Attendants. 

How now, my as fair as noble ladies, — and the Moon, were 
she earthly, no nobler, — whither do you follow your eyes so 
fast? 

Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches ; 
for the love of Juno, let's go. 

Men. Ha ! Marcius coming home ? 

Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius ; and with most prosperous 
approbation. 

Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. — Hoo ! 
Marcius coming home ! 

Nay, 'tis true. 



Val. 

Vol. Look, here's a letter from him : the State hath an- 
other, his wife another ; and, I think, there's one at home for 
you. 

Men. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter 
for me ! 

Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you ; I saw't. 

Men. A letter for me ! it gives me an estate of seven 
years' health ; in which time I will make a lip at the physi- 
cian : the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiri- 
cutic, 13 and, to 14 this preservative, of no better report than 

13 A word probably coined by old Menenius himself for quack medicine. 
— Divers critics have made merry at the Poet for thus making Menenius refer 
to Galen, the person speaking having lived about 650 years before the per- 
son spoken of. I leave it for others to determine whether the anachronism 
were perpetrated in ignorance or in contempt of historical accuracy. 

14 Compared to, or in comparison with. To is often used thus. 



f8 CORIOLANUS. ACT II. 

a horse-drench. Is he not wounded ? he was wont to come 
home wounded. 

Vir. O, no, no, no. 

Vol. O, he is wounded ; I thank the gods for't. 

Men.. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings 'a vic- 
tory in his pocket? The wounds become him. 

Vol. On's brows : 15 Menenius, he comes the third time 
home with the oaken garland. 

Men. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? 

Vol. Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but Aufi- 
dius got off. 

Men. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that : 
an he had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd 
for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is 
the Senate possess'd 16 of this ? 

Vol. Good ladies, let's go. — Yes, yes, yes ; the Senate 
has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the 
whole name of the war : he hath in this action outdone his 
former deeds doubly. 

Val. In troth, there's wonderous things spoke of him. 

Men. Wondrous ! ay, I warrant you, and not without his 
true purchasing. 

Vir. The gods grant them true ! 

Vol. True ! pow, wow. 

Men. True ! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he 
wounded? — [To the Tribunes.] God save your good Wor- 
ships ! Marcius is coming home : he has more cause to be 
proud. — Where is he wounded ? 

15 "He brings victory on his brow " ; for he comes the third time home 
brow-bound with the oaken garland. Volumnia's thoughts stick upon Mene- 
nius's question, " Brings 'a victory in his pocket?" and she takes no notice 
of the words, " The wounds become him." 

16 Possess'd is informed. See Twelfth Night, page 65, note 25. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 79 

Vol. V the shoulder and i' the left arm : there will be 
large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall stand for 
his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven 
hurts i' the body. 

Men. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh ; there's nine 
that I know. 17 

Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five 
wounds upon him. 

Men. Now it's twenty-seven : every gash was an enemy's 
grave. \_A shout and flourish within.'] Hark ! the trum- 
pets. 

Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius : before him he car- 
ries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. 
*Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie ; 
*Which being advanced, declines, and then men die. 18 

A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius and Titus 
Lartius ; between them, Coriolanus, crowned with an 
oaken garland ; with Captains, Soldiers, and a Herald. 

Her. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight 
Within Corioli gates ; where he hath won, 
With fame, a name to 19 Caius Marcius ; these 
In honour follows Coriolanus. — Welcome, 
Welcome to Rome, renown'd Coriolanus ! [Flourish. 

!7 Menenius probably has no reference to the wounds that Volumnia was 
speaking of, but is trying to reckon up and locate those already known to 
himself: he therefore specifies three, and then, in his haste, merely states 
the gross number. 

18 He has but to lift up his hand, and let it fall, and men sink beneath 
it. — This ranting couplet is most likely an interpolation ; perhaps, as White 
thinks, " added in the prompter's book, to please the actor of Volumnia with 
a round, mouth-filling speech." 

19 Here to has the force of in addition to. See Macbeth, page 99, note 9, 



SO CORIOLANUS. ACT II 

All. Welcome to Rome, renown'd Coriolanus ! 

Cor. No more of this, it does offend my heart ; 
Pray now, no more. 

Com. Look, sir, your mother : 

Cor. O, 

You have, I know, petition'd all the gods 
For my prosperity. [Kneels. 

Vol. [Raising him.~\ Nay, my good soldier, up ; 
My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and 
By deed-achieving honour newly named, — 
What is it ? — Coriolanus must I call thee ? 
But, O, thy wife ! 

Cor. My gracious silence, hail ! 20 

Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home, 
That weep'st to see me triumph ? Ah, my dear, 
Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear, 
And mothers that lack sons. 

Men. Now, the gods crown thee ! 

Cor. And live you yet? — [To Valeria.] O my sweet 
lady, pardon. 

Vol. I know not where to turn. — O, welcome home ! — 
And welcome, general ! and ye're welcome all. 

Men. A hundred thousand welcomes : — I could weep, 
And I could laugh ; I'm light and heavy : — welcome ! 
A curse begin at very root on's heart 
That is not glad to see thee ! — You are three 
That Rome should dote on : yet, by th' faith of men, 

20 By " gracious silence " is probably meant, " thou whose silent tears 
are more eloquent and grateful to me than the clamorous applause of the rest." 
So in Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour : " You shall see sweet silent 
rhetoric and dumb eloquence speaking in her eye." Gracious is sometimes 
used by Shakespeare for grateful, acceptable. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 8 1 

We've some old crab-trees here at home that will not 
Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors ! 
We call a nettle but a nettle, and 
The faults of fools but folly. 

Com. Ever right. 

Cor. Menenius ever, ever. 

Her. Give way there, and go on ! 

Cor. \_To Vol. and Vir.] Your hand, and yours : 

Ere in our own house I do shade my head, 
The good patricians must be visited ; 
From whom I have received not only greetings, 
But with them charge of honours. 

Vol. I have lived 

To see inherited my very wishes, 21 
And the buildings of my fancy : only there 
Is one thing wanting, which I doubt not but 
Our Rome will cast upon thee. 

Cor. Know, good mother, 

I had rather be their servant in my way 
Than sway with them in theirs. 

Com. On, to the Capitol ! 

\Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. 
Brutus and Sicinius come forward. 

Bru. All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights 
Are spectacled to see him : your prattling nurse 
Into a rupture lets her baby cry 
While she chats him : 22 the kitchen malkin pins 

21 " To see myself in possession of all I have wished for." The use of 
inherit for possess or have occurs frequently. See Tempest, p. 125, note 30. 

22 " While she chats him " probably means " while she makes him the 
theme of chat ; she being so carried away with the enthusiasm as to lose all 
thought of the crying baby, cry he never so vehemently. — It having been 



82 CORIOLANUS. ACT II, 

Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck, 23 

Clambering the walls to eye him : stalls, bulks, windows, 

Are smother'd up, leads filPd, and ridges horsed 24 

With variable complexions ; all agreeing 

In earnestness to see him : seld-shown flamens 

Do press among the popular throngs, and puff 

To win a vulgar station : 25 our veil'd dames 

Commit the war of white and damask, in 

Their nicely-gauded cheeks, to th' wanton spoil 

Of Phcebus' burning kisses : such a pother, 

As if that whatsoever god who leads him 

Were slily crept into his human powers, 

And gave him graceful posture. 

Sic. On the sudden, 

I warrant him Consul. 

questioned whether crying ever causes a rupture in babies, Judge Black- 
stone said, " I have inquired, and am told it is usual." Whereupon Dr. C. 
M. Ingleby observes, " Probably most fathers and mothers know that such 
is the fact." And he quotes from Phioravante's Secrets, 1582 : " To helpe 
yong Children of the Rupture. The Rupture is caused two waies, the one 
through weaknesse of the place, and the other through much criyng." 

23 " Kitchen malkin " is equivalent to kitchen wench, as " country mal- 
kin " is to country wench. Malkin, applied to a woman, is of frequent occur- 
rence in old writers, and is supposed to be a diminutive of Mai, that is Mary, 
as Wilkin is of Will, and Tomkin of Tom. — Lockram was a cheap coarse 
linen. — Reechy is reeking, that is, smoky. So in The Invisible Comedy, 1610 : 
" He look'd so reechily, like bacon hanging on the chimney's roof." 

24 Men crowd together upon the lead-covered roofs, and sit astride the 
ridge-poles, of houses. 

25 Seld was often used for seldom. Flamens were a high order of priests. — 
"Vulgar station " is a standing-place among the vulgar. — A war of colours 
in a woman's face seems to have been a favourite image with the Poet. So 
in The Taming of the Shrew : " Such war of white and red within hel 
cheeks." And in Lucrece : 

The silent war of lilies and of roses, 
Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 83 

Bru. Then our office may, 

During his power, go sleep. 

Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours 
From where he should begin to th' end ; but will 
Lose those he hath won. 26 

Bru. In that there's comfort. 

Sic. Doubt not 

The commoners, for whom we stand, but they, 
Upon their ancient malice, will forget, 
With the least cause, these his new honours ; which 
That he will give them, make as little question 
As he is proud to do't. 27 

Bru. I heard him swear, 

Were he to stand for Consul, never would he 
Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put 
The napless vesture of humility ; 
Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds 
To th' people, beg their stinking breaths. 

Sic. 'Tis right. 

Bru. It was his word : O, he would miss it, rather 
Than carry't but. by th' suit o' the gentry to him, 
And the desire of the nobles. 

Sic. I wish no better 

Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it 
In execution. 

Bru. 'Tis most like he will. 

26 The meaning seems to be, he cannot be content to proceed temper- 
ately in the course of honour, beginning, as he should, with the lower, and 
advancing gradually to the highest : and so will make shipwreck of all his 
honours by the way. 

27 "Which cause make as little question that he will give them as that he 
is proud of doing it." " Proud to do't" is another instance of the infinitive 
used gerundively. 



84 CORIOLANUS. 

Sic. It shall be to him, then, as our good wills, 28 
A sure destruction. 

Bru. So it must fall out 

To him or our authorities. For an end, 
We must suggest the people in what hatred 
He still hath held them ; that to's power 29 he would 
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders, and 
Dispropertied their freedoms ; holding them, 
In human action and capacity, 
Of no more soul nor fitness for the world 
Than camels in the war ; who have their provand 30 
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows 
For sinking under them. 

Sic. This, as you say, suggested 

At some time when his soaring insolence 
Shall touch the people, — which time shall not want, 
If he be put upon't ; and that's as easy 
As to set dogs on sheep, — will be as fire 
To kindle their dry stubble ; and their blaze 
Shall darken him for ever. — 

Enter a Messenger. 

Bru. What's the matter? 

Mess. You're sent for to the Capitol 'Tis thought 
That Marcius shall be Consul. 
I've seen the dumb men throng to see him, and 
The blind to hear him speak : matrons flung gloves, 
Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers, 



28 As our interest requires ; wills being a verb. 

29 Meaning, to the utmost of his power. 

30 Provand is an old word for provender. 



ACT IL 



SCENE ii. CORIOLANUS. 85 

Upon him as he pass'd : 31 the nobles bended, 
As to Jove's statue ; and the commons made 
A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts. 
I never saw the like. 

Bru. Let's to the Capitol ; 

And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time, 
But hearts for the event. 

Sic. Have with you. \Exeunt, 



Scene II. — The Same. The Capitol. 
Enter two Officers, to lay cushions. 

1 Off. Come, come, they are almost here. How many 
stand for consulships ? 

2 Off. Three, they say : but 'tis thought of every one 
Coriolanus will carry it. 

1 Off. That's a brave fellow ; but he's vengeance proud, 
and loves not the common people. 

2 Off. Faith, there have been many great men that have 
flatter'd the people, who ne'er loved them ; and there be 
many that they have loved, they know not wherefore : so 
that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better 
a ground : therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether 
they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in 
their disposition ; and, out of his noble carelessness, lets them 
plainly see't. 

1 Off. If he did not care whether he had their love or 
no, he'd waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good 

31 Another anachronism ; the Romans being represented as doing what, 
in the days of chivalry, was done at tiltings and tournaments in honour of 
the successful combatant. 



86 CORIOLANUS. ACT II. 

nor harm ; but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than 
they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may 
fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the 
malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which 
he dislikes, to flatter them for their love. 

2 Off. He hath deserved worthily of his country : and 
his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, 1 having 
been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted into 
their estimation and report, without any further deed to 
have them at all : 2 but he hath so planted his honours in 
their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their 
tongues to be silent, and not confess so much, were a kind 
of ingrateful injury ; to report otherwise, were a malice, that, 
giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from 
every ear that heard it. 

i Off. No more of him ; he's a worthy man : make way, 
they are coming. 

A sennet. Enter, with Lictors before them, Cominius, Me- 
nenius, Coriolanus, Senators, Sicinius, and Brutus. The 
Senators take their places ; the Tribunes take theirs also 
by themselves . 

1 Properly it should be " as theirs who " ; but the Poet has many like 
instances of loose construction. Here the irregularity does not obscure the 
sense. 

2 The meaning is, won the favour of the people by pulling off the hat to 
them, without doing any thing further to earn it. This is the explanation 
given by Delius, and is surely right. To bonnet or to cap is to uncover the 
head as a token or ceremony of respect. So in Othello, i. i : " Three great 
ones of the city, in personal suit to make me his lieutenant, oft capp'd to 
him." See, also, Othello, page 58, note 8. — Political demagogues are the 
same in all ages, evermore fawning and toadying their way into popular 
favour, and eating all sorts of dirt to the people in order to get their votes ; 
and the people love to have it so : all which we need not go far to learn. 
See Critical Notes. 



scene ii. coriolanus. Sy 

Men. Having determined of the Volsces, and 
To send for Titus Lartius, it remains, 
As the main point of this our after- meeting, 
To gratify his noble service that 

Hath thus stood for his country : therefore, please you, 
Most reverend and grave elders, to desire 
The present Consul, and last general 
In our well-found successes, to report 
A little of that worthy work perform'd 
By Caius Marcius Coriolanus ; whom 
We meet here, both to thank, and to remember 
With honours like himself. 3 

/ Sen. Speak, good Cominius : 

Leave nothing out for length, and make us think 
Rather our State's defective for requital 
Than we to stretch it out. — \_To the Tribunes.] Masters o' 

the people, 
We do request your kindest ears ; and, after, 
Your loving motion toward the common body, 
To yield what passes here. 

Sic. We are convented 

Upon a pleasing treaty ; and have hearts 
Inclinable 4 to honour and advance 
The theme of our assembly. 

Bru. Which the rather 



3 " With honours like himself probably means with honours suited or 
proportionable to his merits. — "For length," in the next line is on account 
of length. So in i. 10, of this play : " My valour, poison' d with only suffer- 
ing stain by him, for him shall fly out of itself." See, also, Macbeth, page 
103, note 22. 

4 Inclinable for inclined, that is, disposed. The endings -ed and -able or 
*ible were often used interchangeably. See Hamlet, page 114, note 63. 



88 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT II. 



We shall be blest to do, 5 if he remember 
A kinder value of the people than 
He hath hereto prized them at. 

Men. That's off, that's off; 6 

I would you rather had been silent. Please you 
To hear Cominius speak ? 

Bru. Most willingly ; 

But yet my caution was more pertinent 
Than the rebuke you give it. 

Men. He loves your people \ 

But tie him not to be their bedfellow. — 
Worthy Cominius, speak. — [Coriolanus rises, and offers to 
go away."] Nay, keep your place. 

i Sen. Sit, Coriolanus ; never shame to hear 
What you have nobly done. 

Cor. Your Honours' pardon : 

I had rather have my wounds to heal again 
Than hear say how I got them. 

Bru. Sir, I hope 

My words disbench'd you not. 

Cor. No, sir ; yet oft, 

Wfren blows have made me stay, I fled from words. 
You soothed not, 7 therefore hurt not : but, your people, 
I love them as they weigh. 

Men. Pray now, sit down. 

Cor. I had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun, 
When the alarum were struck, than idly sit 
To hear my'nothings monster'd. [Exit. 

5 Blest to do is no doubt the same as blest, that is, happy, in doing. The 
gerundial infinitive. 

6 From the purpose, or irrelevant ; hence Brutus declares it pertinent. 

7 To soothe was sometimes used for to flatter or cajole. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 89 

Men. Masters of the people, 

Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter, — 
That's thousand to one good one, — when you now see 
He had rather venture all his limbs for honour 
Than one on's ears to hear't? — Proceed, Cominius. 

Com. I shall lack voice : the deeds of Coriolanus 
Should not be utter'd feebly. — It is held 
That valour is the chiefest virtue, and 
Most dignifies the haver : if it be, 
The man I speak of cannot in the world 
Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years, 
When Tarquin made a head 8 for Rome, he fought 
Beyond the mark of others : our then Dictator, 
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight, 
When with his Amazonian chin he drove 
The bristled lips before him : he bestrid 
An o'er-press'd Roman, 9 and i' the Consul's view 
Slew three opposers : Tarquin's self he met, 
And struck him on his knee : 10 in that day's feats, 
When he might act the woman in the scene, 11 
He proved best man i' the field, and for his meed 
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil-age 
Man-enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea ; 
And, in the brunt of seventeen battles since, 

8 To make a head was in frequent use for to raise or to lead an army. 

9 To bestride a man when down upon the battle-field was considered an 
act of the greatest kindness ; and to save the life of a fellow-soldier in fight 
was one of the most honourable services a Roman could render to the State. 
See Macbeth, page 135, note 1. 

10 Not that he gave Tarquin a blow on the knee, but gave him such a 
blow as made him fall on his knee. 

11 In Shakespeare's time, women's parts were acted by unbearded youths, 
or by youngsters with " Amazonian chins." 



gO CORIOLANUS. ACT II. 

He lurch'd all swords o' the garland. 12 For this last, 

Before and in Corioli, let me say, 

I cannot speak him home : he stopp'd the fliers ; 

And by his rare example made the coward 

Turn terror into sport : as waves before 

A vessel under sail, so men obey'd, 

And fell below his stem : his sword, death's stamp, 13 

Where it did mark, it took ; from face to foot 

He was a thing of blood, whose every motion 

Was timed with dying cries : 14 alone he enter'd 

The mortal gate o' the city, which he painted 

With shunless destiny ; 15 aidless came off, 

And with a sudden re-enforcement struck 

Corioli like a planet. 16 Now all's his : 

When, by-and-by, the din of war 'gan pierce 

His ready sense ; then straight his doubled spirit 

Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate, 

12 This use of lurch has occasioned a good deal of comment. The best 
explanation of it that I have met with is in The Edinburgh Review for July, 
1869 : " Both noun and verb were in use among the Elizabethan writers in 
the sense of seizure, robbery. In the sense of engrossing, of seizing and 
carrying off with a high hand, lurch is also used amongst others by Bacon 
and Milton. To lurch all swords of the garland, means therefore, not only 
to rob all swords of the garland, but to carry it away from them with an 
easy and victorious swoop." The word, however, appears to have been 
only another spelling of lurk ; so that its radical sense is that of " going it 
on the sly " to filch or steal. 

13 The instrument with which Death stamps or seals men for his own. 

14 The cries of the dying kept time with every motion that he made. 

15 Stained with blood inevitably destined to flow where his sword was 
busy. — Mortal is deadly here, as it often is in old writers. 

16 This is well illustrated from Timon of Athens, iv. 3 : 

Be as a planetary plague, when Jove 

Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison 

In the sick air : let not thy sword skip one. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 9 1 

And to the battle came he ; where he did 
Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if 
'Twere a perpetual spoil ; and. till we call'd 
Both field and city ours, he never stood 
To ease his breast with panting. 

Men. Worthy man ! 

i Sen. He cannot but with measure fit the honours 
Which we devise him. 

Com. Our spoils he kick'd at ; 

And look'd upon things precious as they were 
The common muck o' the world : he covets less 
Than misery 17 itself would give ; rewards 
His deeds with doing them ; and is content 
To spend the time to end it. 18 

Men. He's right noble : 

Let him be call'd for. 

i Sen. Call Coriolanus. 

Off. He doth appear. 

Re-enter Coriolanus. 

Men. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased 
To make thee Consul. 

Cor. I do owe them still 

My life and services. 

Men. It then remains 

That you do speak to th' people. 

Cor. I do beseech you, 

17 Misery for avarice, as miser signifies avaricious, or miserly. 

18 A strange expression ; but probably meaning " content to end the time 
in spending it" ; that is, loving valiant action for its own sake, regardless of 
any further considerations ; and so not drawing upon the future or upon 
hope to sweeten his present service. 



92 CORIOLANUS. ACT 11, 

Let me o'erleap that custom ; for I cannot 

Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them, 

For my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage : please you 

That I may pass this doing, 

Sic. Sir, the people 

Must have their voices ; neither will they bate 
One jot of ceremony.. 

Men. Put them not to't : 

Pray you, go fit you to the custom ; and 
Take to you, as your predecessors have, 
Your honour with your form. 19 

Cor. It is a part 

That I shall blush in acting, and might well 
Be taken from the people. 

Bru. [To Sic] Mark you that? 

Cor. To brag unto them, thus I did, and thus ; 
Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide, 
As if I had received them for the hire 
Of their breath only ! — 

Men. Do not stand upon't. — 

We recommend to you, tribunes of the people, 
Our purpose to them ; 20 and to our noble Consul 
Wish we all joy and honour. 

Senators. To Coriolanus come all joy and honour ! 

\_Flourish. Exeunt all but Brutus and Sicinius. 

Bru. You see how he intends to use the people. 

Sic. May they perceive's intent ! He will require them, 

19 " Your form " is the form which custom prescribes to you. 

20 Such is probably the right division of the line ; though some have 
printed it with the (;) after purpose, thus connecting to them with what 
follows. But the last to is probably used for towards or in reference to; 
" our purpose towards them." 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 93 

As if he did contemn what he requested 
Should be in them to give. 21 

Bru. Come, we'll inform them 

Of our proceedings here : on th' market-place 
I know they do attend 22 us. \_Exeunt 



Scene III. — The Same. The Forum. 

Enter several Citizens. 

i Cit. Once, 1 if he do require our voices, we ought not 
to deny him. 

2 Cit. We may, sir, if we will. 

3 Cit. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a 
power that we have no power to do : 2 for, if he show us his 
wounds, and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues 
into those wounds, and speak for them ; so, if he tell us 
his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance 
of them. Ingratitude is monstrous : and, for the multitude 
to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude ; 
of the which we being members, should bring ourselves to 
be monstrous members. 

21 Contemn that it should be in their power to give that which he 
requested. This passage shows that require and request were used synony- 
mously. The Poet has many like instances. 

22 Attend, again, in the sense of wait for. See page 73, note 7. 

1 Once was sometimes used in a way that is rather puzzling to us mod- 
erns. Here it seems to mean enough. Staunton thinks it equivalent to 
for the nonce ; but I cannot quite see that. See Much Ado, p. 35, note 34. 

•2 Power in the first instance here means natural power, ox force, and then 
moral power, or right. Heath explains it thus : "We have indeed a power 
by law to do it, if we think proper ; but this power amounts to the same as 
no power at all, because we should offer the greatest violence to our very 
natures, if we should exert it." 



94 



CORIOLANUS. ACT IL 



1 Cit. And to make us no better thought of, a little help 
will serve ; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself 
stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude. 

j Cit. We have been called so of many ; not that our 
heads are some brown, some black, some abram, 3 some 
bald, but that our wits are so diversely colour'd : and truly 
I think, if all our wits were to issue out of one skull, they 
would fly east, west, north, south ; and their consent of one 
direct way should be at once to all the points o' the com- 
pass. 

2 Cit. Think you so ? Which way do you judge my wit 
would fly? 

j Cit. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's 
will, — 'tis strongly wedged up in a blockhead ; but, if it 
were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward. 

2 Cit. Why that way ? 

S Cit. To lose itself in a fog; where, being three parts 
melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return for 
conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife. 

2 Cit. You are never without your tricks : you may, you 
may. 

j Cit. Are you all resolved to give your voices? But 
that's no matter, the greater part carries it. I say, if he 

3 It appears that abram and abraham were used as epithets of colour, 
and that the particular colour designated by them was what we call fiaxen : 
how or why they came to be so used, is involved in mystery. So in Soli- 
man and Perseda, 1599 : " Where is the eldest Sonne of Pryam, that abra- 
ham-colourd Trojon ? dead." And in Middleton's Blurt, Master Constable, 
1602 : " A goodlie, long, thicke, Abram-colourd beard." These passages 
do not indeed show what colour the terms meant ; but Shakespeare elsewhere 
uses the phrase "abram Cupid"; and that ancient roguish imp of Venus 
was usually conceived and represented as fiaxen-haired. Some, however, 
identify it with auburn ; perhaps rightly. See Romeo and Juhet, page 67, 
note 3. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 95 

would incline to the people, there was never a worthier man. 
Here he comes, and in the gown of humility : mark his be- 
haviour. We are not to stay all together, but to come by 
him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's 
to make his requests by particulars ; wherein every one of 
us has a single honour, in giving him our own voices with 
our own tongues : therefore follow me, and I'll direct you 
how you shall go by him. 

All. Content, content. [Exeunt. 

Enter Coriolanus and Menenius. 

Men. O sir, you are not right : have you not known 
The worthiest men have done't? 

Cor. What must I say ? 

I pray, sir ; — Plague upon't ! I cannot bring 
My. tongue to such a pace ; — look, sir; my wounds : 
I got them in my country's service, when 
Some cei'tain of your brethren roar'd, and ran 
From th? noise of our own drums. 

Men. O me, the gods ! 

You must not speak of that : you must desire them 
To think upon you. 

Cor. Think upon me ! hang 'em ! 

I would they would forget me, like the virtues 
Which our divines lose by 'em. 4 

Men. You'll mar all : 

I'll leave you : pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you, 

4 Probably, " the virtuous precepts which our divines lose their time in 
preaching to them." — This use of the term divines has been set down as 
another anachronism. No doubt it is so. And so in North's Plutarch we 
often find that the ancient Greeks and Romans had bishops among them. 
The Poet simply uses the language of his time to represent what has been 
done at all times. 



g6 CORIOLANUS. ACT II. 

In wholesome 5 manner. 

Cor. Bid them wash their faces, 

And keep their teeth clean. [Exit Menenius.] — So, here 
comes a brace. — 

Re-enter two Citizens. 

You know the cause, sirs, of my standing here. 

i Cit. We do, sir ; tell us what hath brought you to't. 

Cor. Mine own desert. 

2 Cit. Your own desert ! 

Cor. Ay, not mine own desire. 

i Cit. How ! not your own desire ? 

Cor. No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble the 
:oor with begging. 

i Cit. You must think, if we give you any thing, we hope 
to gain by you. 

Cor. Well, then, I pray, your price o' the consulship? 

i Cit. The price is, to ask it kindly. 

Cor. Kindly ! Sir, I pray, let me ha't : I have wounds 
to show you, which shall be yours in private. — Your good 
voice, sir ; what say you ? 

2 Cit. You shall ha't, worthy sir. 

Cor. A match, sir. — There's in all two worthy voices 
jegg'd. — I have your alms : adieu. 

i Cit. But this is something odd. 

2 Cit. An 'twere to give again, — but 'tis no matter. 

[Exeunt the two Citizens. 

Re-enter two other Citizens. 

Cor. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your 

5 Wholesome here plainly means agreeable or pleasant. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 97 

voices that I may be Consul, I have here the customary 
gown. 

J Cit. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you 
have not deserved nobly. 

Cor. Your enigma? 

j Cit. You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have 
been a rod to her friends ; you have not, indeed, loved the 
common people. 

Cor. You should account me the more virtuous, that I 
have not been common in my love. I will, sir, natter my 
sworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of 
them ; 'tis a condition 6 they account gentle : and, since the 
wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my 
heart, I will practise the insinuating nod, and be off to them 7 
most counterfeitly ; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the be- 
witchment of some popular man, and give it bountiful to the 
desirers. Therefore, beseech you I may be Consul. 

4. Cit. We hope to find you our friend ; and therefore 
give you our voices heartily. 

J Cit. You have received many wounds for your country. 

Cor. I will not seal your knowledge 8 with showing them. 
I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no 
further. 

Both Cit. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily ! 

[Exeunt. 

Cor. Most sweet voices ! — 
Better it is to die, better to starve, 
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve. 

. * Condition, as usual, for disposition or temper. 

7 That is, off with my cap to them. See page 86, note i. 

8 " I will not strengthen or complete your knowledge." The sealing is 
that which finishes or ratifies a writing or contract. 



98 CORIOLANUS. ACT II 

Why in this woolvish toge 9 should I stand here, 
To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear, 
Their needless vouches ? 10 Custom calls me to't. 
What custom wills, in all things should we do't, 
The dust on antique time would lie unswept, 
And mountainous error be too highly heapt 
For truth t' o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so, 
Let the high office and the honour go 
To one that would do thus. I am half through ; 
The one part suffer'd, th' other will I do. 
Here come more voices. — 

Re-enter three other Citizens. 

Your voices : for your voices I have fought ; 
Watch'd for your voices ; for your voices bear 
Of wounds two dozen odd ; battles thrice six 
I've seen and heard of; n for your voices have 

9 Toge is a monosyllabic form of toga, the classical name of the civic 
gown which the Roman men wore in time ^f peace. Here, of course, it is 
what was called the toga Candida, which was worn by those who canvassed 
for an office, and who were thence termed candidati. The toga was in fact 
made of wool ; and an equivoque or double meaning was most likely in- 
tended in woolvish, referring both to the material of the gown and to the 
fact, that the speaker is in effect playing the part of a " wolf in sheep's cloth- 
ing," wearing " the napless vesture of humility," while he is conscious of 
being any thing but humble within. 

10 He calls the " vouches " needless, because in his opinion an election by 
the Senate is or ought to be enough. — " Hob and Dick" are Roman roughs 
with rustic English names. — Mr. Joseph Crosby thinks appear is here used 
as a transitive verb, having vouches for its object, and meaning show, offer, 
or present. It is indeed true that the Poet sometimes uses the word in that 
way: but here I think both sense and grammar come better if we take 
vouches as the object of beg. 

11 This, if the text be right, must mean, apparently, " I have taken part 
in eighteen battles, and those so considerable, that I have since heard them 
talked about." See Critical Notes. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 99 

Done many things, some less, some more : your voices : 
Indeed, I would be Consul. 

5 Cit. He has done nobly, and cannot go without any 
honest man's voice. 

6 Cit. Therefore let him be Consul : the gods give him 
joy, and make him good friend to the people ! 

All three Citizens. Amen, amen. — God save thee, noble 
Consul ! \_Exeunt 

Co?\ Worthy voices ! 

Re-enter Menenius, with Brutus and Sicinius. 

Men. You've stood your limitation ; 12 and the tribunes 
Endue you with the people's voice : remains 
That, in th' official marks invested, you 
Anon do meet the Senate. 

Cor. Is this done? 

Sic. The custom of request you have discharged : 
The people do admit you ; and are summon'd 
To meet anon, upon your approbation. 

Cor. Where ? at the Senate-house ? 

Sic. There, Coriolanus. 

Cor. May I, then, change these garments? 

Sic. You may, sir„ 

Cor. That I'll straight do ; and, knowing myself again, 
Repair to th' Senate-house. 

Men. I'll keep you company. — Will you along? 

Bru. We stay here for the people. 

Sic. Fare you well. — 

[Exeunt Coriolanus and Menenius. 
He has it now ; and, by his looks, methinks 

12 " Your limitation " is your appointment, or appointed time. So the Poet 
repeatedly uses to limit for to appoint. See Macbeth, page 88, note 34. 



IOO CORIOLANUS. ACT II. 

'Tis warm at's heart. 

Bru. With a proud heart he wore 

His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people ? 

Re-enter Citizens. 

Sic. How now, my masters ! have you chose this man ? 

i Cit. He has our voices, sir. 

Bru. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves. 

2 Cit. Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notion, 
He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices. 

3 Cit. Certainly 
He flouted us downright. 

i Cit. No, 'tis his kind of speech ; he did not mock us. 

2 Cit. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says 
He used us scornfully ; he should have show'd us 
His marks of merit, wounds received for's country. 

Sic. Why, so he did, I'm sure. 

All the Citizens. No, no ; no man saw 'em. 

3 Cit. He said he had wounds, which he could show in 

private ; 
And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn, 
7* would be Consul, says he ; aged custom 
But by your voices will not so permit me ; 
Your voices therefore. When we granted that, 
Here was, I thank you for your voices, — thank you, • — 
Your most sweet voices : now you've left your voices, 
I have no further with you. Was not this mockery? 

Sic. Why either were you ignorant to see't, 13 
Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness 
To yield your voices ? 

13 " Why did you lack the sense to perceive it ? " 



SCENE in. CORIOLANUS. IOI 

Bru. Could you not have told him, 

As you were lesson'd, when he had no power, 
But was a petty servant to the State, 
He was your enemy ; ever spake against 
Your liberties, and the charters that you bear 
I' the body of the weal ; and now, arriving 
A place of potency, 14 and sway o' the State, 
If he should still malignantly remain 
Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might 
Be curses to yourselves ? You should have said, 
That as his worthy deeds did claim no less 
Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature 
Would think upon you for your voices, and 
Translate his malice towards you into love, 
Standing your friendly lord. 

Sic. Thus to have said, 

As you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit 
And tried his inclination ; from him pluck'd 
Either his gracious promise, which you might, 
As cause had call'd you up, have held him to ; 
Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature, 
Which easily endures not article 
Tying him to aught ; so, putting him to rage, 
You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler, 
And pass'd him unelected. 

Bru. Did you perceive 

He did solicit you in free contempt, 
When he did need your loves ; and do you think 
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you, 
When he hath power to crush ? Why, had your bodies 

14 Arrive was sometimes used as a transitive verb. See Julius Ccesar % 
page 50, note 27. 



102 CORIOLANUS. ACT IL 

No heart among you ? or had you tongues to cry 
Against the rectorship of judgment? 15 

Sic. Have you, 

Ere now, denied the asker ? and now again, 
Of him 16 that did not ask, but mock, bestow 
Your sued-for tongues ? 

J Cit. He's not confirm 'd ; we may 

Deny him yet. 

2 Cit. And will deny him ; I 

Will have five hundred voices of that sound. 

i Cit. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 
'em. 

Brit. Get you hence instantly ; and tell those friends 
They've chose a Consul that will from them take 
Their liberties ; make them of no more voice 
Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking 
As they are kept to do so. 

Sic. Let them assemble ; 

And, on a safer judgment, all revoke 
Your ignorant election : enforce 17 his pride, 
And his old hate unto you : besides, forget not 
With what contempt he wore the humble weed ; 
How in his suit he scorn'd you ; but your loves, 
Thinking upon his services, took from you 
The apprehension of his present portance, 18 

15 Tongues to vote otherwise than as your judgment counselled or com-, 
manded. Rectorship is rtile or government. 

16 " On him," of course. The indiscriminate use of on and of occurs 
frequently. See Romeo and Juliet, page 36, note 5. 

17 Enforce in the sense of to press or urge strongly. So in iii. 3 : " Enforce 
him with his envy to the people." And in Julius Ccesar, iii. 2: "Nor his 
offences enforced, for which he suffered death." 

18 Portance is bearing or behaviour. See Othello, page 68, note 13. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. IO3 

Which, gibing most ungravely, he did fashion 
After th' inveterate hate he bears you. 

Bru. Lay 

A fault on us, your tribunes ; that we labour'd 
No impediment between, but that you must 
Cast your election on him. 19 

Sic. Say you chose him 

More after our commandment than as guided 
By your own true affections ; and that your minds, 
Pre-occupied with what you rather must do 
Than what you should, made you against the grain 
To voice him Consul : lay the fault on us. 

Bru. Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you, 
How youngly he began to serve his country, 
How long continued ; and what stock he springs of, 
The noble House o' the Marcians ; from whence came 
That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son, 
Who, after great Hostilius, here was king ; 
Of the same House Publius and Quintus were, 
That our best water brought by conduits hither ; 
And Censorinus, who was nobly named so, 
Twice being chosen Censor by the people, 
Was his great ancestor. 

Sic. One thus descended, 

That hath besides well in his person wrought 
To be set high in place, we did commend 



19 The meaning seems to be, " we labour'd, or took pains, that there might 
be no obstacle or hindrance, to excuse you from voting for him." Endeav- 
oured to have, or to leave, " no impediment between." The language is 
somewhat obscure. — Here we have a right piece of demagogical craft ; 
the sneaking " wealsmen " trying to creep, underhand, into the good graces 
of the patricians while setting the dogs to worrying them. 



104 CORIOLANUS. ACT IL 

To your remembrances ; but you have found, 
Scaling his present bearing with his past, 20 
That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke 
Your sudden approbation. 

Bru. Say you ne'er had done't — 

Harp on that still — but by our putting on ; 21 
And presently, when you have drawn your number, 
Repair to th' Capitol. 

All the Citizens. We will so : almost all 
Repent in their election. 22 \_Exeunt 

Bru. Let them go on ; 

This mutiny were better put in hazard, 
Than stay, past doubt, for greater : 
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage 
With their refusal, both observe and answer 
The vantage of his anger. 23 

Sic. To th' Capitol, come : 

We will be there before the stream o' the people ; 
And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own, 
Which we have goaded onward. \_Exeunt. 

20 Putting in the scales, that is, weighing or balancing his present con- 
duct with his past. 

21 Putting on in the sense of instigating or inciting. Often so. 

22 Repent, that is, change their mind, in regard to the election, or in the 
midst of it. The election is not yet legally completed. 

23 Be ready to take advantage of his anger : meet the opportunity. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. I05 

ACT III. 

Scene I. — Rome. A Street. 

Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius, Titus 
Lartius, Senators, and Patricians. 

Cor. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head? 

Lart. He had, my lord ; and that it was which caused 
Our swifter composition. 

Cor. So, then the Volsces stand but as at first ; 
Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road 
Upon's again. 

Com. They're worn, lord Consul, so, 

That we shall hardly in our ages see 
Their banners wave again. 

Cor. Saw you Aufidius ? 

Lart. On safe-guard 1 he came to me ; and did curse 
Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely 
Yielded the town : he is retired to Antium. 

Cor. Spoke he of me ? 

Lart. He did, my lord. 

Cor. How? what? 

Lart How often he had met you, sword to sword ; 
That of all things upon the Earth he hated 
Your person most ; that he would pawn his fortunes 
To hopeless restitution, 2 so he might 
Be call'd your vanquisher. 

1 On safe-guard is, with a guard to protect him. 

2 "To hopeless restitution" means beyond the hope of restitution or 
recovery. Shakespeare has many like forms of expression. 



106 CORIOLANUS. ACT III. 

Cor. At Antium lives he ? 

Lart At Antium. 

Cor. I wish I had a cause to seek him there, 
T' oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home. — 

Enter Sicinius a?id Brutus. 

Behold, these are the tribunes of the people, 

The tongues o' the common mouth : I do despise them : 

For they do prank them in authority, 

Against all noble sufferance. 

Sic. Pass no further. 

Cor. Ha ! what is that ? 

Bru. It will be dangerous to go on : no further. 

Cor. What makes this change ? 

Men. The matter? 

Com. Hath he not pass'd the nobles and the com- 
mons? 

Bru. Cominius, no. 

Cor. Have I had children's voices ? 

i Sen. Tribunes, give way ; he shall to th' market-place. 

Bru. The people are incensed against him. 

Sic. Stop, 

Or all will fall in broil. 

Cor. Are these your herd? 

Must these have voices, that can yield them now, 
And straight disclaim their tongues ? What are your offices ? 
You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth ? 
Have you not set them on ? 

Men. Be calm, be calm. 

Cor. It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot, 
To curb the will of the nobility : 
Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule, 



SCENE i. CORIOLANUS. I07 

Nor ever will be ruled. 

Bru. Call't not a plot : 

The people cry you mock'd them ; and of late, 
When corn was given them gratis, you repined ; 
Scandal'd the suppliants for the people ; call'd them 
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness. 

Cor. Why, this was known before. 

Bru. Not to them all. 

Cor. Have you inform'd them sithence ? 3 

Bru. How ! I inform them ! 

Cor. You're like to do such business. 

Bru. Not unlike, 

Each way, to better yours. 4 

Cor. Why, then, should I be Consul ? By yond clouds, 
Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me 
Your fellow tribune. 

Sic. You show too much of that 

For which the people stir : if you will pass 
To where you're bound, you must inquire your way, 
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit ; 
Or never be so noble as a Consul, 
Nor yoke with him for tribune. 

Men. Let's be calm. 

Com. The people are abused ; set on. This paltering 5 

3 Sithence and sith are old forms of the temporal and causal since. Both 
were lapsing out of use in Shakespeare's time, and since was replacing them ; 
but he has sith repeatedly, and sithence in one other place. Hooker uses 
sith and sithence a great deal ; since, very little. 

4 That is, not unlikely to better, to surpass, your doing, or your action, in 
every way. To which the reply is pertinent, " Why, then, should I be 
Consul ? " The use of to better for to surpass occurs repeatedly. See vol. 
vii. page 216, note 19. 

5 Paltering is shuffling, dodging, haggling, or playing fast and loose. See 
Macbeth, page 164, note 5. 



I08 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT ill. 



Becomes not Rome ; nor has Coriolanus 
Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely 
I' the plain way of his merit. 6 

Cor. Tell me of corn ! 

This was my speech, and I will speak't again, — 

Men. Not now, not now. 

i Sen. Not in this heat, sir, now. 

Cor. Now, as I live, I will. My nobler friends, 
I crave their pardons : 

For th' mutable, rank-scented many, let them 
Regard me as I do not flatter, and 
Therein behold themselves. 7 I say again, 
In soothing 8 them, we nourish 'gainst our Senate 
The cockle 9 of rebellion, insolence, sedition, 
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd, 
By mingling them with us, the honour'd number ; 
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that 
Which they have given to beggars. 

Men. Well, no more. 

i Sen. No more words, we beseech you. 

Cor. How ! no more ! 

As for my country I have shed my blood, 

6 An allusion to bowling ; a rub being a hindrance, impediment, or any 
thing that deflects the bowl from its aim. — Falsely is treacherously. — Dis- 
honour'd for dishonouring, or dishonourable, either of which senses fits the 
context, while both are in accordance with old usage. 

7 " Let them regard this in me, that I am no flatterer, but speak my honest 
thought ; and let them see themselves as they are, in the glass of my plain, 
unflattering speech." 

8 Soothing is flattering, indulging, feeding their humour. 

9 Cockle is a weed which grows up and chokes the corn. The thought is 
from North's Plutarch : " Moreover, he said that they nourished against 
themselves the naughty seed and cockle of insolency and sedition, which had 
been sowed and scattered abroad among the people." 



scene i. CORIOLANUS. IO9 

Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs 
Coin words till their decay against those measles, 10 
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought 
The very way to catch them. 

Bru. You speak o' the people, 

As if you were a god to punish, not 
A man of their infirmity. 

Sic. 'Twere well 

We let the people know't. 

Men. What, what? his choler? 

Cor. Choler! 
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep, 
By Jove, 'twould be my mind ! 

Sic. It is a mind 

That shall remain a poison where it is, 
Not poison any further. 

Cor. Shall remain / — 

Hear you this Triton of the minnows ? mark you 
His absolute shall? 

Com. 'Twas from the canon. 11 

Cor. Shall/ 

O good, but most unwise patricians ! why, 
You grave, but reckless Senators, have you thus 
Given Hydra here 12 to choose an officer, 
That with his peremptory shall, being but 
The horn and noise o' the monster, 13 wants not spirit 

10 Meazel, or mesell, is an old term for a leper. 

11 That is, 'twas out of order, diverse from the rule of legal right. 

12 Hydra is what the same speaker afterwards describes as " the beast 
with many heads." — Given is here equivalent to allowed or empowered : 
given them the prerogative of choosing. See Critical Notes. 

13 The horn through which the beast aforesaid trumpets forth his 
noise. 



I IO CORIOLANUS. ACT III 

To say he'll turn your current in a ditch, 

And make your channel his? If they have power, 

Let them have cushions by you ; if none, revoke 

Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned, 

Be not as common fools ; if you are not, 

Then vail 14 your ignorance. You are plebeians, 

If they be Senators : and they are no less, 

When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste 

Most palates theirs. 15 They choose their magistrate ; 

And such a one as he, who puts his shall, 

His popular shall, against a graver bench 

Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself, 

It makes the Consuls base ! and my soul aches 

To know, when two authorities are up, 

Neither supreme, how soon confusion 

May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take 

The one by th' other. 

Com. Well ; on to th' market-place. 

Cor. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth 
The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used 
Sometime in Greece, — 

Men. Well, well, no more of that. 

Cor. — Though there the people had more absolute 
power, — 
I say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed 

14 To vail is to lower, to let fall, to abase. See Hamlet, page 59, note 20. 

15 To palate is commonly used with reference to the sense or organ of 
taste ; here, with reference to the thing tasted, or the flavour that affects the 
palate. I quote Mr. R. Whitelaw's happy explanation of the- passage : 
"' The prevailing flavour of the whole smacks rather of their voice than of 
yours.' Judged by results, — the taste it leaves in the mouth, — this dualized 
government of compromise gives expression to the- popular, rather than to 
the patrician, will : the tribunicial nay is stronger than the consular yea" 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. Ill 

The ruin of the State. 

Bru. Why, shall the people give 

One, that speaks thus, their voice ? 

Cor. I'll give my reasons, 

More worthier than their voices. They know the corn 
Was not our recompense, 16 resting well assured 
They ne'er did service for't. Being press 'd to th' war, 
Even when the navel of the State was touch'd, 
They would not thread the gates : 17 this kind of service 
Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war, 
Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd 
Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation 
Which they have often made against the Senate, 
All cause unborn, could never be the motive 
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then ? 
How shall this bisson multitude digest 
The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express 
What's like to be their words : 18 We did request it; 
We are the greater poll?* and in true fear 
They gave us our demands. Thus we debase 
The nature of our seats, and make the rabble 
Call our cares fears ; which will in time break ope 

16 " Our recompense " would now mean the recompense received by us ; 
here it means the recompense given by us ; our being what is called the 
subjective genitive ; that is, having reference to the subject or source, and 
not to the object or recipient, of the recompense. In Shakespeare's time, 
the objective and subjective genitives were often used indiscriminately, 
where such use is now obsolete. See The Tempest, page 138, note 23. 

17 To " thread the gates " is to pass through them. So in King Richard 
the Second, v. 5 : " To thread the postern of a small neeld's eye." 

18 " Let their past deeds be taken as an indication of what they are likely 
to speak openly." 

19 Poll was used for head : here it is number ; as to poll is to count by 
the head. 



112 CORIOLANUS. ACT III 

The locks o' the Senate, and bring in the crows 
To peck the eagles. 

Men. Come, enough. - 

Bru. Enough, with over-measure. 

Cor. * No, take more : 

What may be sworn by, both divine and human, 
Seal what I end withal ! This double worship, — 
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other 
Insult without all reason ; where gentry, title, wisdom, 
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no 
Of general ignorance, — it must omit 
Real necessities, and give way the while 
T' unstable slightness : purpose so barr'd, it follows, 
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you, — 
You that will be less fearful than discreet ; 
That love the fundamental part of State 
More than you doubt 20 the change on't ; that prefer 
A noble life before a long, and wish 
To jump 21 a body with a dangerous physic 
That's sure of death without it, — at once pluck out 
The multitudinous tongue ; let them not lick 
The sweet which is their poison : your dishonour 
Mangles true judgment, 22 and bereaves the State 
Of that integrity which should become 't ; 
Not having the power to do the good it would, 
For th' ill which doth control't. 

20 Here, as in many other places, doubt is equivalent to fear. 

21 To jump is to risk or hazard; referring to the kill-or-cure treatment 
that is sometimes resorted to in desperate cases. — The " dangerous physic " 
which Coriolanus contemplates is the abolition of the tribunate ; and he 
does not shirk the likelihood, that this will cause an earthquake in the State. 

22 " The dishonour heaped upon you hacks and maims the august form 
of Justice." — Integrity, in the next line, is unity of purpose. A Latinism. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 1 1 3 

Bru. 'Has said enough. 

Sic. 'Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer 
As traitors do. 

Cor. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee ! — 

What should the people do with these bald 23 tribunes ? 
On whom depending, their obedience fails 
To th' greater bench : in a rebellion, 
When what's not meet, but what must be, was law, 
Then were they chosen : in a better hour, 
Let what is meet be said it must be meet, 
And throw their power i' the dust. 24 

Bru. Manifest treason ! 

Sic. This a Consul? no. 

Bru. Th' sediles, ho ! 

Enter an ^Edile. 

Let him be apprehended. 
Sic. Go, call the people ; [Exit ^Edile.] — in whose 
name myself 
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator, 
A foe to th' public weal : obey, I charge thee, 
And follow to thine answer. 

Cor. Hence, old goat ! 

„ ' \ We'll surety him. 
Pat. ) y 

Com. Aged sir, hands off. 

Cor. Hence, rotten thing ! or I shall shake thy bones 

Out of thy garments. 

23 Bald is, properly, naked, bare ; hence empty, senseless ; as in balder- 
dash. So in 1 Henry IV., i. 3 : " This bald, unjointed chat of his." 

24 " Let it be said by you that what is meet to be done, must be meet, 
that is, shall be done, and put an end at once to the tribunitian power." 



1 14 CORIOLANUS. ACT in. 

Sic. Help, ye citizens ! 

Enter a Rabble #/" Citizens, with the ^Ediles. 

Men. On both sides more respect. 

Sic. Here's he that would take from you all your power. 

Bru. Seize him, sediles ! 

Citizens. Down with him ! down with him ! 

Sen.~\ 

Pat. >• Weapons, weapons, weapons ! — 

&>c. 3 \_They all bustle about Coriolanus. 

Tribunes ! — Patricians ! — Citizens ! — What, bo ! — 
Sicinius ! — Brutus ! — Coriolanus ! — Citizens ! — 
Peace, peace, peace ! — Stay, hold, peace ! 

Men. What is about to be ? I'm out of breath ; 
Confusion's near ; I cannot speak. — You, tribunes, 
Speak to the people ; — Coriolanus, patience ; — 
Speak, good Sicinius. 

Sic. Hear me, people ; peace ! 

Citizens. Let's hear our tribune : peace ! — Speak, speak, 
speak. 

Sic. You are at point to lose your liberties : 
Marcius would have all from you ; Marcius, 
Whom late you've named for Consul. 

Men. Fie, fie, fie ! 

This is the way to kindle, not to quench. 

1 Sen. T' unbuild the city, and to lay all flat. 

Sic. What is the city but the people ? 

Citizens. True, 

The people are the city. 

Bru. By the consent of all, we were establish'd 
The people's magistrates. 

Citizens. You so remain. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 115 

Men. And so are like to do. 
Cor. That is the way to lay the city flat ; 25 
To bring the roof to the foundation, 
And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges, 
In heaps and piles of ruin. 

Sic. This deserves death. 

Bru. Or let us stand to our authority, 
Or let us lose it. — We do here pronounce, 
Upon the part o' the people, in whose power 
We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy 
Of present death. 

Sic. Therefore lay hold of him ; 

Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence 
Into destruction cast him. 

Bru. ^Ediles, seize him ! 

Citizens. Yield, Marcius, yield ! 

Men. Hear me one word : 

Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word. 

ALd. Peace, peace ! 

Men. Be that you seem, truly your country's friends, 
And temperately proceed to what you would 
Thus violently redress. 

Bru. Sir, those cold ways, 

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous 
Where the disease is violent. — Lay hands upon him, 
And bear him to the rock. 

Cor. \_Drawing his sword."] No, I'll die here. 
There's some among you have beheld me fighting : 
Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me. 

25 Meaning, no doubt, that retaining the Tribunes in power is " the way 
to lay the city flat," &c. The Tribunes naturally regard this as a treasonable 
assertion. 



Il6 CORIOLANUS. ACT IH 

Men. Down with that sword ! — Tribunes, withdraw awhile. 

Bru. Lay hands upon him. 

Men. Help, help Marcius, help, 

You th£t be noble ; help him, young and old ! 

Citizens. Down with him ! down with him ! 

\_In this mutiny the Tribunes, the ^Ediles, 
and the People are beat in. 

Men. Go, get you to your house ; be gone, away ! 
All will be naught else. 

2 Sen. Get you gone. 

Cor. Stand fast ; 

We have as many friends as enemies. 

Men. Shall it be put to that ? 

i Sen. The gods forbid ! — 

I pr'ythee, noble friend, home to thy house ; 
Leave us to cure this cause. 

Men. For 'tis a sore upon us, 

You cannot tent yourself : be gone, beseech you. 

Com. Come, sir, along with us. 

Cor. I would they were barbarians, as they are, 
Though in Rome litter'd ; not Romans, as they are not, 
Though calved i' the porch o' the Capitol, — 

Men. Be gone ; 

Put not your worthy rage into your tongue ; 
One time will owe another. 26 

Cor. On fair ground 

I could beat forty of them. 

Men. I could myself take up a brace o' the best 
Of them ; yea, the two tribunes. 



26 " Our turn of success will come." Or, " another time will recompense 
us for the defeat and dishonour of to-day." 



SCENE I. 



CORIOLANUS. II7 



Com. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic ; 
And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands 
Against a falling fabric. — Will you hence, 
Before the tag return ? whose rage doth rend 
Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear 
What they are used to bear. 

Me?i. Pray you, be gone : 

I'll try whether my old wit be in request 
With those that have but little : this must be patch'd 
With cloth of any colour. 

Com. Nay, come away. 

\_Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, and others. 

1 Pat. This man has marr'd his fortune. 
Men. His nature is too noble for the world : 

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth : 
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent ; 
And, being angry, does forget that ever 
He heard the name of death. \_A noise within.'] Here's 
goodly work ! 

2 Pat. I would they were a-bed ! 

Men. I would they were in Tiber ! What, the vengeance, 
Could he not speak 'em fair? 

Re-enter Brutus and Sicinius, with the Rabble. 

Sic. Where is this viper, 

That would depopulate the city, and 

Be every man himself? 

Men. You worthy tribunes, — 

Sic. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock 

With rigorous hands ; he hath resisted law, 

And therefore law shall scorn him further trial 



Il8 CORIOLANUS. ACT III. 

Than the severity of the public power, 
Which he so sets at nought. 

i Cit. He shall well know 

The noble tribunes are the people's mouths, 
And we their hands. 

Citizens. He shall, sure on't. 

Men. Sir, sir, — 

Sic. Peace ! 

Men. Do not cry havoc, 27 where you should but hunt 
With modest warrant. 

Sic. Sir, how comes 't that you 

Have holp to make this rescue ? 

Men. Hear me speak : 

As I do know the Consul's worthiness, 
So can I name his faults, — 

Sic. Consul ! what Consul? 

Men. The Consul Coriolanus. 

Bru. He Consul ! 

Citizens. No, no, no, no, no. 

Men. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people, 
I may be heard, I'd crave a word or two ; 
The which shall turn you to no further harm 
Than so much loss of time. 

Sic. Speak briefly, then ; 

For we are peremptory to dispatch 
This viperous traitor : to eject him hence 
Were but our danger ; and to keep him here 
Our certain death : therefore it is decreed 
He dies to-night. 

27 Havoc was the signal for giving no quarter in battle ; and any one who 
should " cry havoc" without authority from the commanding general, was to 
be punished with death. See yulius Ccesar, page 115, note 43. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 119 

Men. Now the good gods forbid 

That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude 
Towards her deserved 28 children is enroll'd 
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam 
Should now eat up her own ! 

Sic. He's a disease that must be cut away. 

Men. O, he's a limb that has but a disease ; 
Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy. 
What has he done to Rome that's worthy death ? 
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost — 
Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath, 
By many an ounce — he dropp'd it for his country ; 
And what is left, to lose it by his country, 
Were to us all, that do't and suffer it, 
A brand to th' end o' the world. 

Sic. This is clean kam. 29 

Bru. Merely 30 awry : when he did love his country, 
It honour'd him. 

Men. The service of the foot 

Being once gangrened, is not then respected 
For what before it was. 31 

Bru. We'll hear no more. — 

t 28 Deserved for deserving ; an instance of the indiscriminate use of active 
and passive forms so common in Shakespeare. I have noted many such 
cases. See King Lear, page 67, note 49. 

29 All wrong ; the same as " merely awry " in the next line. Kam is an 
old word for crooked; thus explained by Cotgrave : " All goes cleane con- 
trarie, quite kamme." Clean kam appears to have been corrupted into kim- 
kam ; of which word Holland's Plutarch furnishes several instances : " First 
mark, I beseech you, the comparison, how they go clean kim-kam, and 
against the stream, as if rivers run up hills." 

30 Merely, here, is utterly or absolutely. Often so. 

31 Here Menenius is probably to be understood as urging the logical 
consequences of the Tribtme's position, by way of refuting it. 



120 CORIOLANUS. ACT III. 

Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence ; 
Lest his infection, being of catching nature, 
Spread further. 

Men. One word more, one word. 

This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find 
The harm of unscann'd 32 swiftness, will, too late, 
Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process ; 
Lest parties — as he is beloved — break out, 
And sack great Rome with Romans. 

Bru. If t were so, — 

Sic. What do ye talk? 
Have we not had a taste of his obedience ? 
Our sediles smote ? 33 ourselves resisted ? — Come, — 

Men. Consider this : He has been bred i' the wars 
Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd 
In bolted language ; meal and bran together 
He throws without distinction. Give me leave, 
I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him 
Where he shall answer, by a lawful form, — 
In peace, — to's utmost peril. 

i Sen. Noble tribunes, 

It is the humane way : the other course 
Will prove too bloody ; and the end of it 
Unknown to the beginnning. 

Sic. Noble Menenius, 

Be you, then, as the people's officer. — 
Masters, lay down your weapons. 

Bru. Go not home. 

32 Unscanrid here means heedless, inconsiderate, rash. 

33 The writers of Shakespeare's time did not much mind the classical 
pronunciation of Greek and Latin names. So. here.. Aldiles is used as a 
word of two syllables. The same once, if not twice, before in this scene. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 1 2 1 

Sic. Meet on the market-place. — We'll attend you there ; 
Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed 
In our first way. 

Men. I'll bring him to you. — \To the Senators.] Let me 
Desire your company : he must come, or what 
Is worst will follow. 

i Sen. Pray you, let us to him. [Exeunt 

Scene II. ■ — A Room in Coriolanus's House. 
Enter Coriolanus and Patricians. 

Cor. Let them pull all about mine ears ; present me 
Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels ; 
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock, 
That the precipitation might down stretch 
Below the beam of sight ; yet will I still 
Be thus to them. 

i Pat. You do the nobler. 

Cor. I muse 1 my mother 
Does not approve me further, who was wont 
To call them woollen vassals, 2 things created 
To buy and sell with groats ; to show bare heads 
In congregations ; to yawn, be still, and wonder, 
When one but of my ordinance 3 stood up 
To speak of peace or war. — 

Enter Volumnia. 

I talk of you : 

1 Muse for wonder ; a frequent usage. See Macbeth, page 114, note 12. 

2 That is, wretches, or loafers, unfit for war, and good for nothing but to 
wear the cowardly toga. See page 98, note 9. 

3 Ordinance is here used, apparently, for order or rank. 



122 GORIOLANUS. act hi. 

Why did you wish me milder ? would you have me 
False to my nature ? Rather say, I play 
Truly the man I am. 

Vol. O, sir, sir, sir, 4 

I would have had you put your power well on, 
Before you had worn it out. 

Cor. Let go. 

Vol. You might have been enough the man you are, 
With striving less to be so : lesser had been 
The thwartings of your disposition, if 
You had not show'd them how ye were disposed 
Ere they lack'd power to cross you. 

Cor. Let them hang. 

Vol. Ay, and burn too. 

Enter Menenius and Senators. 

Men. Come, come, you've been too rough, something too 
rough ; 
You must return and mend it. 

i Sen. There's no remedy ; 

Unless, by not so doing, our good city 
Cleave in the midst, and perish. 

Vol. Pray, be counsell'd ; 

I have a heart as tickle-apt 5 as yours, 

4 Dyce aptly suggests that the use of sir, sir, sir may be meant as a mild, 
but significant note of displeasure at the hero's conduct : " one of Shake- 
speare's touches of nature." 

s As dangerous to meddle with ; as sensitive ; as apt to explode if stirred, 
or to fire up if touched with provocation. The Poet has tickle repeatedly 
in a kindred sense. See Hamlet, page 109, note 44. So in North's Plu- 
tarch : " Some men feared lest he would bring all the city in an uproar, 
considering it stood then but in very tickle terms." And in Fletcher's Rule 
a Wife and have a Wife, iii. 1 : " Courtiers are but tickle things to deal 
withal." Also in Holland's Pliny : " For who knoweth not, that in frost it is 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 1 23 

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 
To better vantage. 

Men. Well said, noble woman ! 

Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that 
The violent fit o' the time craves it as physic 
For the whole State, I'd put mine armour on, 
Which I can scarcely bear. 

Cor. What must I do ? 

Men. Return to th' tribunes. 

Cor. Well, what then ? what then ? 

Men. Repent what you have spoke. 

Cor. For them ? I cannot do it to the gods ; 
Must I, then, do't to them ? 

Vol. You are too absolute ; 

Though therein you can never be too noble, 
But when extremities speak. I've heard you say, 
Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends, 
I' the war do grow together : grant that, and tell me, 
In peace what each of them by th' other lose, 
That they combine not there. 

Cor. Tush, tush ! 

Men. A good demand. 

ticklish medling with vines, and that they be in daunger soone to breake 
and knap asunder." Still more to the purpose is a passage in Chapman's 
Byron's Conspiracy, 1608 : 

Colonel Williams, 
A worthy captain, would compare with him, 
And hold his swelling valor to the mark; 
And, as in open vessels fill'd with water, 
And on men's shoulders borne, they put treen cups, 
To keep the wild and slippery element 
From washing over ; follow all his sways 
And tickle-aptness to exceed his bounds, 
And in the brim contain him. 



124 COR10LANUS. ACT III 

Vol. If it be honour in your wars to seem 
The same you are not, — which, for your best ends, 
You adopt your policy, — how is it less or worse, 
That it shall hold companionship in peace 
With honour, as in war ; since that to both 
It stands in like request ? 

Cor. Why force you this ? 

Vol. Because that now it lies you on 6 to speak 
To th' people ; not by your own instruction, 
Nor by the matter which your own heart prompts you, 
But with such words that are but roted in 
Your tongue, thought's bastards, and but syllables 
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth. 7 
Now, this no more dishonours you at all 
Than to take-in 8 a town with gentle words, 
Which else would put you to your fortune, and 
The hazard of much blood. 
I would dissemble with my nature, where 
My fortunes and my friends at stake required 

6 " It lies you on," or " it stands you on," is an old phrase for " it is in- 
cumbent on you," or " it is your part and duty." See Hamlet, p. 216, n. 15. 

7 Allowance is here used in the old sense of to allow, that is, to justify or 
approve ; as in Psalm xi. of the Psalter : " The Lord alloweth the righteous." 
Also in many other places of the English Bible. Shakespeare has allowance 
repeatedly in the same sense ; as in King Lear, i. 4 : " That you protect this 
course, and put it on by your allowance!' — The best explanation of the 
passage in the text, that I have met with, is furnished me by Mr. Joseph 
Crosby: "Truth sits enthroned on your bosom, to sanction your thoughts 
and language : but, in the present case, your words will be but illegitimate 
offspring, not born of your heart, having no approval or justification from 
that truth; but merely roted in your tongue, — spoken, as a parrot or child 
talks, by rote!' A verse from Psalm cxxxix., of the Psalter, is not irrelevant 
here : " There is not a word in my tongue, but Thou, O Lord, knowest it 
altogether." 

8 Take-in, again, in the sense of capture or subdue. See page 51, note 5. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 125 

I should do so in honour : I am in this, 

Your wife, your son, 9 these Senators, the nobles ; 

And you will rather show our general louts 

How you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em, 

For the inheritance of their loves, and safeguard 

Of what that want 10 might ruin. 

Men. Noble lady ! — 

Come, go with us ; speak fair : you may salve so, 
Not n what is dangerous present, but the loss 
Of what is past. 

Vol. I pr'ythee now, my son, 

Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand ; 
And — thus far having stretch 'd it, (here be with them,) 
Thy knee bussing the stones, (for in such business 
Action is eloquence, and th' eyes of th' ignorant 
More learned than the ears,) waving thy head, 
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, 
Bow, humble as the ripest mulberry 
That will not hold the handling — say to them, 
Thou art their soldier, and, being bred in broils, 
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess, 
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim, 
In asking their good loves ; but thou wilt frame 
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far 
As thou hast power and person. 

Men. This but done, 

Even as she speaks it, why, their hearts were yours ; 

9 Meaning, apparently, " I am in, or of this mind ; so is your wife, your 
son," &c. Or the sense may be, " I am, in this, your wife " ; that is, " in this 
advice I express the thought of your wife," &c. 

10 That want is the want of that, namely, " their loves." 

11 Not is here equivalent to not only. 



126 CORIOLANUS. ACT III. 

For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free 
As words to little purpose. 

Vol. Pr'ythee now, 

Go, and be ruled : although I know thou hadst rather 
Follow thine enemy in 12 a fiery gulf 
Than flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius. 

Enter Cominius. 

Com. I've been i' the market-place ; and, sir, 'tis fit 
You make strong party, or defend yourself 
By calmness or by absence : all's in anger. 

Men. Only fair speech. 

Com. I think 'twill serve, if he 

Can thereto frame his spirit. 

Vol. He must, and will. — 

Pr'ythee now, say you will, and go about it. 

Cor. Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce ? 13 
Must I with my base tongue give to my heart 
A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't : 

12 Here, again, in has the sense oiinto. See page 49, note 1. 

13 The Poet repeatedly uses sconce for head. — Unbarbed is explained by 
Dyce and some others as unshorn, untrimmed ; which can hardly be right, 
as the speech clearly refers, not to personal appearance, but to the customary 
signs of deference and humility, one of which was standing bare-headed, 
and bowing in a lowly manner to the assembled citizens. And so The 
Edinburgh Review for October, 1872, shows conclusively, in a passage too 
long for quotation here, that barbe was often used for any head-covering ; 
the writer adding that " to show an unbarbed sconce is to show an un- 
covered, unprotected sconce ; in other words, to appear bare-headed," This 
accords with what Volumnia has just said to her son : " Go to them, with 
this bonnet in thy hand'' — In the next line, " my base tongue " is a clear 
instance of prolepsis ; meaning tongue that will be base, if he uses it in 
the way proposed. The Poet has a good many such proleptical forms of 
speech. See 2 Henry IV., page 170, note 1. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 127 

Yet, were there but this single plot l4 to lose, 

This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it, 

And throw't against the wind. — To th' market-place ! - — 

You've put me now to such a part, which never 

I shall discharge to th' life. 

Com. Come, come, we'll prompt you 

Vol. I pr'ythee now, sweet son, as thou hast said 
My praises made thee first a soldier, so, 
To have my praise for this, perform a part 
Thou hast not done before. 

Cor. Well, I must do't : 

Away my disposition, and possess me 
Some harlot's spirit ! my throat of war be turn'd, 
Which quired with my drum, 15 into a pipe 
Small as an eunuch's, or the virgin voice 
That babies lulls asleep ! 16 the smiles of knaves 
Tent in my cheeks ; and schoolboys' tears take up 
The glasses of my sight ! a beggar's tongue 
Make motion through my lips ; and my arm'd knees. 
Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his 
That hath received an alms ! — I will not do't ; 
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, 
And by my body's action teach my mind 
A most inherent baseness. 

Vol. At thy choice, then : 

14 Plot is piece, portion, applied to a piece of earth, and here transferred 
to the body. 

1 5 Which p lay ed in concert with my drum. So in The Merchant of Venice: 
" Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins." 

16 White notes virgin here as an " infelicitous use of epithet." I cannot 
conceive why, unless on the ground that virgins never use their voice in 
singing lullaby to other people's children. Do none but mothers lull babies 
asleep ? 



128 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT III. 



To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour 

Than thou of them. Come all to ruin : let 

Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear 

Thy dangerous stoutness ; ]7 for I mock at death 

With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list. 

Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me ; 

But owest thy pride thyself. 

Cor. Pray, be content : 

Mother, I'm going to the market-place ; 
Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves, 
Cog 18 their hearts from them, and come home beloved 
Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going : 
Commend me to my wife. I'll return Consul ; 
Or never trust to what my tongue can do 
I' the way of flattery further. 

Vol. Do your will. [Exit 

Com. Away ! the tribunes do attend you : 19 arm yourself 
To answer mildly ; for they are prepared 
With accusations, as I hear, more strong 
Than are upon you yet. 

Cor. The word is mildly. — Pray you, let us go : 
Let them accuse me by invention, I 
Will answer in mine honour. 

Men. Ay, but mildly. 

Cor. Well, mildly be it, then ; mildly ! [Exeunt 

17 The meaning probably is, " let me suffer the worst that thy pride 
can bring upon me, rather than thus live in fear of what will grow from thy 
obstinacy." 

18 To mountebank is, here, to play the conjurer. — To cog is to cheat, to 
wheedle, to lie. See Much Ado, page 109, note 8. 

19 Here, again, attend is wait for or await. See page 73, note 7. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 129 

Scene III. — Same. The Forum. 

Enter Sicinius and Brutus. 

Bru. In this point charge him home, that he affects 
Tyrannical power : if he evade us there. 
Enforce him with his envy l to the people ; 
And that the spoil got on the Antiates 
Was ne'er distributed. — 

Enter an yEdile. 
What, will he come ? 

/Ed. He's coming. 

Bru. How accompanied? 

/Ed. With old Menenius, and those Senators 
That always favour'd him. 

Sic. Have you a catalogue 

Of all the voices that we have procured, 
Set down by th' poll? 

/Ed. I have ; 'tis ready here. 

Sic. Have you collected them by tribes? 

^Ed. I have. 

Sic. Assemble presently the people hither : 
And, when they hear me say, // shall be so 
T the right and strength o' the commons, be it either 
For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them, 
If I say fine, cry Fine ; if death, cry Death ; 
Insisting on the old prerogative 
And power i' the truth o' the cause. 

/Ed. I shall inform them, 

Bru. And, when such time they have begun to cry, 

1 Envy is hatred or malice here, as commonly in Shakespeare. 



1 30 CORIOLANUS. ACT II* 

Let them not cease, but with a din confused 
Enforce the present execution 
Of what we chance to sentence. 

did. Very well. 

Sic. Make them be strong, and ready for this hint, 
When we shall hap to give't them. 

Bru. Go about it. — \_Exit ^Edile 

Put him to choler straight : he hath been used 
Ever to conquer, and to have his word 
Of contradiction : being once chafed, he cannot 
Be rein'd again to temperance ; then he speaks 
What's in his heart ; and that is there which looks 
With us to break his neck. 2 

Sic. Well, here he comes. 

Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius, Senators, and 

Patricians. 

Men. Calmly, I do beseech you. 

Cor. Ay, as an ostler, that for th' poorest piece 
Will bear the knave by th' volume. 3 — Th' honour'd gods 
Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice 
Supplied with worthy men ! plant love among's ! 
Throng our large temples with the shows of peace., 
And not our streets with war ! 

1 Sen. Amen, amen ! 
Men. A noble wish ! 

Re-e?iter ^Edile, with Citizens. 

Sic. Draw near, ye people. 

2 " That which, with the use that we shall make of it, tends l or is likely^ 
to break his neck " ; that is, hurl him from the Tarpeian rock. 

8 Bear being called a knave as many times as would fill a volume. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 131 

ALd. List to your tribunes ; audience ! peace, I say ! 

Cor. First hear me speak. 

Both Tri. Well, say. — Peace, ho ! 

Cor. Shall I be charged no further than this present? 
Must all determine here ? 

Sic. I do demand, 

If you submit you to the people's voices, 
Allow their officers, and are content 
To suffer lawful censure for such faults 
As shall be proved upon you? 

Cor. I'm content. 

Men. Lo, citizens, he says he is content : 
The warlike service he has done, consider ; think 
Upon the wounds his body bears, which show 
Like graves i' the holy churchyard. 

Cor. Scratches with briers^ 

Scars to move laughter only. 

Men. Consider further, 

That when he speaks not like a citizen, 
You find him like a soldier : do not take 
His rougher accents for malicious sounds, 
But, as I say, such as become a soldier, 
Rather than envy you. 4 

Com. Well, well, no more. 

Cor. What is the matter, 
That, being pass'd for Consul with full voice, 
I'm so dishonour'd, that the very hour 
You take it off again ? 

Sic. Answer to us. 

Cor. Say, then ; 'tis true, I ought so. 

4 " Rather than such as spring from a purpose to malign or spite you." 



I32 CORIOLANUS. ACT III 

Sic. We charge you, that you have contrived to take 
From Rome all season' d office, and to wind 
Yourself into a power tyrannical ; 
For which you are a traitor to the people. 

Cor. How ! traitor ! 

Men. Nay, temperately ; your promise 

Cor. The fires i' the lowest Hell fold-in the people ! 
Call me their traitor? Thou injurious tribune ! 
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths, 
In thy hands clutch 'd as many millions, in 
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say 
Thou liest unto thee with a voice as free 
As I do pray the gods. 

Sic. Mark you this, people ? 

Citizens. To th' rock, to th' rock with him ! 

Sic. Peace ! 
We need not put new matter to his charge : 
What you have seen him do and heard him speak, 
Beating your officers, cursing yourselves, 
Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying 
Those whose great power must try him ; even this 
So criminal, and in such capital kind, 
Deserves th' extremest death. 

Bru. But, since he hath 

Served well for Rome, — 

Cor. What do you prate of service? 

Bru. I talk of that that know it. 
Cor. You ! 

Men. Is this the promise that you made your mother? 
Com. Know, I pray you, — 
Cor. I'll know no further : 
Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death, 



scene in. CORIOLANUS. 1 33 

Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger 
But with a grain a day, I would not buy 
Their mercy at the price of one fair word ; 
Nor check my courage 5 for what they can give, 
To have't with saying Good morrow. 

Sic. For that he has, 

As much as in him lies., from time to time 
Inveigh'd against the people, seeking means 
To pluck away their power ; as 6 now at last 
Given hostile strokes, and that not 7 in the presence 
Of dreadful justice, but on the ministers 
That do distribute it ; in the name o' the people, 
And in the power of us the tribunes, we, 
Even from this instant, banish him our city ; 
In peril of precipitation 
From off the rock Tarpeian, never more 
To enter our Rome gates : i' the people's name, 
I say it shall be so. 

Citizens. It shall be so, 

It shall be so ; let him away : he's banish'd, 
And it shall be so. 

Com. Hear me, my masters and my common friends, — 

Sic. He's sentenced ; no more hearing. 

Com. Let me speak : 

I have been Consul, and can show for Rome 
Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love 



5 Courage must here be taken in the sense of spirit or resolution ; there 
being no apparent reason why Coriolanus should here speak of his bravery \ 
as the people have not made this any ground of complaint. 

6 As may here signify as well as : such elliptical modes of expression are 
not uncommon in Shakespeare. 

7 Not is here again used for not only. See page 125, note 11. 



134 CORIOLANUS. ACT III. 

My country's good with a respect more tender, 
More holy, and profound, than mine own life, 
My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase, 
And treasure of my loins ; then if I would 
Speak that, — 

Sic. We know your drift : speak what ? 

Bru. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd, 
As enemy to the people and his country : 
It shall be so. 

Citizens. It shall be so, it shall be so. 

Cor. You common cry of curs ! 8 whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
That do corrupt my air, I banish you : 
And here remain with your uncertainty ! 
Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts ! 
Your enemies, wi' th' nodding of their plumes, 
Fan you into despair ! Have the power still 
To banish your defenders ; till at length 
Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels, 
Making but reservation of yourselves, 9 
Still your own foes, deliver you, as most 
Abated 10 captives, to some nation 



8 Cry here signifies a pack. So in a subsequent scene : " You have made 
good work, you and your cry." A cry of hounds was the old term for a 
pack. See Hamlet, page 145, note 43. 

9 Coriolanus imprecates upon the plebeians that they may still retain the 
power of banishing their defenders, till their undiscerning folly, which can 
foresee no consequences, leave none in the city but themselves ; so. that, for 
want of those capable of conducting their defence, they may fall an easy 
prey to some nation who may conquer them without a struggle. 

10 Abated is overthrown, depressed. To abate castles and houses, is to 
overthrow them. To abate the courage of a man was to depress it. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 135 

That won you without blows ! Despising, then, 
For you, the city, thus I turn my back : 
There is a world elsewhere. 11 

\_Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, Menenius, 
Senators, and Patricians. 

Aid. The people's enemy is gone, is gone ! 

Citizens. Our enemy is banish'd ! he is gone ! 
Hoo ! hoo ! [Shouting, and throwing up their caps. 

Sic. Go, see him out at gates, and follow him, 
As he hath follow'd you, with all despite ; 
Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard 
Attend us through the city. 

Citizens. Come, come, let's see him out at gates ; come, 
come ; — 
The gods preserve our noble tribunes ! — come. [Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Rome. Before a Gate of the City. 

Enter Coriolanus, Volumnia, Virgilia, Menenius, Cominius 
and several young Patricians. 

Cor. Come, leave your tears ; a brief farewell : the beast 
With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother, 
Where is your ancient courage ? you were used 

11 It is remarkable that, among the political maxims of the speculative 
Harrington, there is one that he might have borrowed from this speech : 
" The people ccuinot see, but they can feel." It is not much to the honour of 
the people, that they have the same character of stupidity from their enemy 
and their friend. Such was the power of our author's mind, that he looked 
through life in all its relations private and civil. — JOHNSON. 



I36 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

To say extremity was the trier of spirits ; 
That common chances common men could bear ; 
That, when the sea was calm, all boats alike 
Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows, 
When most struck home, being gentle-minded craves 
A noble cunning : l you were used to load me 
With precepts that would make invincible 
The heart that conn'd them. 

Vir. O Heavens ! O Heavens ! 

Cor. Nay, I pr'ythee, woman, — 

Vol. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, 
And occupations 2 perish ! 

Cor. What, what, what ! 

I shall be loved when I am lack'd. Nay, mother, 
Resume that spirit, when you were wont to say, 
If you had been the wife of Hercules, 
Six of his labours you'd have done, and saved 
Your husband so much sweat. — Cominius, 
Droop not ; adieu. — Farewell, my wife, — my mother : 
I'll do well yet. — Thou old and true Menenius, 
Thy tears are Salter than a younger man's, 
And venomous to thine eyes. — My sometime general, 
I've seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld 
Heart-hardening spectacles : tell these sad women, 
'Tis fond 3 to wail inevitable strokes, 

1 " When fortune's blows are most struck home, to bear them with a 
sweet and quiet mind requires a noble wisdom" Cunning was often used 
for wisdom or skill. " Being gentle-minded " has the force of " to be gentle- 
minded " ; the participle for the infinitive. 

2 Occupation is used repeatedly by Shakespeare for trade, the trade of 
mechanics and artisans. So in a subsequent scene : " You that stood so 
much upon the voice of occupation, and the breath of garlic-eaters." 

3 Here, as usual in Shakespeare, fond is foolish. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 137 

As 'tis to laugh at 'em. — My mother, you wot well 

My hazards still have been your solace : and 

Believe't not lightly, — though I go alone, 

Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen 4 

Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen, — your son 

Will or exceed the common, or be caught 

With cautelous 5 baits and practice. 

Vol. My fair son, 

Whither wilt thou go ? Take good Cominius 
With thee awhile : determine on some course, 
More than a wild exposure to each chance 
That starts i' the way before thee. 

Cor. O the gods ! 

Com. I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee 
Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us, 
And we of thee : so, if the time thrust forth 
A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send 
O'er the vast world to seek a single man ; 
And lose advantage, which doth ever cool 
I' the absence of the needer. 

Cor. Fare ye well : 

Thou'st years upon thee ; and thou art too full 
Of the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one 
That's yet unbruised : bring me but out at gate. — 
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and 
My friends of noble touch ; 6 when I am forth, 

4 The fen is the dragon's pestilential abode, which is talked of and 
shunned. 

5 Cazitelous is crafty, subtle, insidious. Warburton says that cautel " sig- 
nified only a prudent foresight or caution, but, passing through French- 
hands, it lost its innocence, and now signifies fraud, deceit." — Common, in 
the preceding line, has hazards understood. 

6 Of true metal. The metaphor from the touchstone for trying metals is 
common in Shakespeare. 



I38 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV, 

Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come. 
While I remain above the ground, you shall 
Hear from me still : and never of me aught 
But what is like me formerly. 

Men. That's worthily 

As any ear can hear. — Come, let's not weep. — 
If I could shake off but one seven years 
From these old arms and legs, by the good gods, 
I'd with thee every foot. 

Cor. Give me thy hand : 

Come. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. A Street near the Gate. 
Enter Sicinius, Brutus, and an ^Edile. 

Sic. Bid them all home ; he's gone, and we'll no 
further. 
The nobility are vex'd, who we see have sided 
In his behalf. 

Bru. Now we have shown our power, 

Let us seem humbler after it is done 
Than when it was a- doing. 

Sic. Bid them home : 

Say their great enemy is gone, and they 
Stand in their ancient strength. 

Bru. Dismiss them home. [Exit ^Edile. 

Here comes his mother. 

Sic. Let's not meet her. 

Bru. Why? 

Sic. They say she's mad. 

Bru. They have ta'en note of us : keep on your way. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 139 

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Menenius. 

Vol. O, ye 're well met : the hoarded plagues o' the gods 
Requite your love ! x 

Men. Peace, peace ! be not so loud. 

Vol. If that I could for weeping, you should hear, — 
Nay, and you shall hear some. — \To Brutus.] Will you be 
gone? 

Vir. \To Sicinius.] You shall stay too : I would I had 
the power 
To say so to my husband. 

Sic. Are you mankind ? 2 

Vol. Ay, fool ; is that a shame ? Note but this, fool : 
Was not a man my father ? Hadst thou foxship 
To banish him that struck more blows for Rome 
That thou hast spoken words ? — 

Sic. O blessed Heavens ! 

Vol. More noble blows than ever thou wise words ; 
And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what ; — yet go ; — 
Nay, but thou shalt stay too : I would my son 
Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him, 
His good sword in his hand. 

Sic. What then ? 

Vol. What then ! 

He'd make an end of thy posterity, 
Bastards and all. Good man, the wounds that he 
Does bear for Rome ! 

Men. Come, come, peace ! 

1 We have a like imprecation in King Lear, ii. 4 : " All the stored ven- 
geances of Heaven fall on her ingrateful top ! " 

2 " Are you a man ? " implying, of course, that she is somewhat viraginous. 
She kills the insult by ignoring it, choosing to understand him as asking 
whether she be human. See The Winter's Tale, page 78, note 8. 



I40 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

Sic. I would he had continued to his country 
As he began, and not unknit himself 
The noble knot he made. 

Bru. I would he had. 

Vol. I would he had / 'Twas you incensed the rabble ; 
Cats, 3 that can judge as fitly of his worth 
As I can of those mysteries which Heaven 
Will not have Earth to know. 

Bru. Pray, let us go. 

Vol. Now, pray, sir, get you gone : 
You've done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this : 
As far as doth the Capitol exceed 
The meanest house in Rome, so far my son, — 
This lady's husband here, this, do you see, — 
Whom you have banish'd, does exceed you all. 

Bru. Well, well, we'll leave you. 

Sic. Why stay we to be baited 

With one that wants her wits? 4 

Vol. Take my prayers with you. — 

\_Exeunt Tribunes. 
I would the gods had nothing else to do 
But to confirm my curses ! Could I meet 'em 5 
But once a-day, it would unclog my heart 
Of what lies heavy to't. 

Men. You've told them home ; 

And, by my troth, you've cause. You'll sup with me? 

Vol. Anger's my meat ; I sup upon myself, 
And so shall starve with feeding. — Come, let's go : 

3 Cats is probably used of the Tribunes, not of the rabble, " Ye cats." 

4 Baited is barked at or worried, as a bear by dogs. See Macbeth, page 
164, note 7. — " Baited with one " is old language for "baited by one." 

5 " Could I meet the tribunes, and curse them " ; not meet \\iQgods. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. I4I 

Leave this faint puling, and lament as I do, 
In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come. 

Men. Fie, fie, fie ! 

\Exeunt 



Scene III. — A Highway between Rome and Antium. 
Enter a Roman and a Volsce, meeting. 

Rom. I know you well, sir, and you know me : your name, 
I think, is Adrian. 

Vols. It is so, sir : truly, I have forgot you. 

Rom. I am a Roman ; and my services are, as you are, 
against 'em : know you me yet ? 

Vols. Nicanor? no. 

Rom. The same, sir. 

Vols. You had more beard when I last saw you ; but your 
favour is well appear'd by your tongue. 1 What's the news 
in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian State, to find you 
out there : you have well saved me a day's journey. 

Rom. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections ; 
the people against the Senators, patricians, and nobles. 

Vols. Hath been ! is it ended, then ? Our State thinks 
not so : they are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to 
come upon them in the heat of their division. 

Rom. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing 
would make it flame again ; for the nobles receive so to 
heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus, that they 
are in a ripe aptness to take all power from the people, and 

1 That is, " your person is well shown or made apparent by your voice? 
The verb to appear is used repeatedly by the Poet in this way. See Cytnbe- 
line, page 138, note 8. 



142 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

to pluck from them their tribunes for ever. This lies glow- 
ing, I can tell you, and is almost mature for the violent 
breaking out. 

Vols. Coriolanus banish'd ! 

Rom. Banish'd, sir. 

Vols. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor. 

Rom. The day serves well for them now. I have heard 
it said, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's 
fallen out with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius 
will appear well in these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, 
being now in no request of his country. 

Vols. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus acci- 
dentally to encounter you : you have ended my business, and 
I will merrily accompany you home. 

Rom. I shall, between this and supper, tell you most 
strange things from Rome ; all tending to the good of their 
adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you ? 

Vols. A most royal one ; the centurions and their charges, 
distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment, 2 and to be on 
foot at an hour's warning. 

Rom. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the 
man, I think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, 
heartily well met, and most glad of your company. 

Vols. You take my part from me, sir ; I have the most 
cause to be glad of yours. 

Rom. Well, let us go together. \_Exeunt. 

2 " In the entertainment" is taken into the service, and on pay. — "Dis- 
tinctly billeted" is assigned quarters, or lodgings, separately ; each company 
by itself. See Othello, page 109, note 34. 



SCENE IV. CORIOLANUS. 143 

Scene IV. — Antium. Before Aufidius's House. 

Enter Coriolanus in mea?i apparel, disguised and muffled. 

Cor. A goodly city is this Antium. — City, 
Tis I that made thy widows : many an heir 
Of these fair edifices 'fore my wars 
Have I heard groan and drop : then know me not ; 
Lest that thy wives with spits, and boys with stones, 
In puny battle slay me. — 

Enter a Citizen. 

Save you, sir. 

Cit. And you. 

Cor. Direct me, if it be your will, 

Where great Aufidius lies : is he in Antium ? 

Cit. He is, and feasts the nobles of the State 
At his house this night. 

Cor. Which is his house, beseech you ? 

Cit. This, here, before you. 

Cor. Thank you, sir : farewell. — ■ 

\_Exit Citizen, 
O world, thy slippery turns ! Friends now fast sworn, 
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, 
Whose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, 
Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love 
Unseparable, shall within this hour, 
On a dissension of a doit, break out 
To bitterest enmity : so, fellest foes, 
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep 
To take the one the other, by some chance, 



144 CORIOLANUS. ACT iv. 

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends, 

And interjoin their issues. So with me : 

My birth-place hate I, and my love's upon 

This enemy's town. I'll enter : if he slay me, 

He does fair justice ; if he give me way, 

I'll do his country service. [Exit. 

Scene V. — The Same. A. Hall in Aufidius's House. 

Music within. Enter a Servant. 

i Serv. Wine, wine, wine ! — What service is here ! I 
think our fellows are asleep. [Exit. 

Enter a second Servant. 

2 Serv. Where's Cotus? my master calls for him. — 
Cotus ! [Exit. 

Enter Coriolanus. 

Cor. A goodly house : the feast smells well ; but I 
Appear not like a guest. 

Re-enter the first Servant. 

i Serv. What would you have, friend ? whence are you ? 
Here's no place for you : pray, go to the door. [Exit 

Cor. I have deserved no better entertainment 
In being Coriolanus. 1 

Re-enter the second Servant. 

2 Serv. Whence are you, sir? — Has the porter no eyes 
in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions ? — 
Pray, get you out. 

1 In having gained that surname by the capture of Corioli. 



scene V. CORIOLANUS. 145 

Cor. Away ! 

2 Serv. Away ! get you away. 

Cor. Now thou'rt troublesome. 

2 Serv. Are you so brave ? I'll have you talk'd with anon. 

Enter a third Servant. 

3 Serv. What fellow's this ? 

2 Serv. A strange one as ever I look'd on : I cannot get 
him out o' the house : pr'ythee, call my master to him. 

3 Serv. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you 
avoid the house. 

Cor. Let me but stand ; I will not hurt your hearth. 

3 Serv. What are you ? 

Cor. A gentleman. 

3 Serv. A marvellous poor one. 

Cor. True, so I am. 

3 Serv. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other 
station ; here's no place for you ; pray you, avoid : come. 

Cor. Follow your function, go, and batten 2 on cold bits. 

\_Pushes hi?n away. 

3 Serv. What, you will not? — Pr'ythee, tell my master 
what a strange guest he has here. 

2 Serv. And I shall. [Exit. 

3 Serv. Where dwellest thou ? 
Cor. Under the canopy. 

3 Serv. Under the canopy ! 

Cor. Ay. 
3 Serv. Where's that? 

Cor. V the city of kites and crows. 

2 To batten is to feed coarsely or grossly. So in Hamlet, iii. 4 : " Could 
you on this fair mountain leave to feed, and batten on this moor ? " 



I46 CORIQLAx>TUS. ACT IV. 

J Serv. V the city of kites and crows ! — What an ass it 
is ! — Then thou dwell'st with daws too ? 

Cor. No, I serve not thy master. 

Serv. How, sir ! do you meddle with my master? 

Cor. Ay ; 'tis honester service than to meddle with thy 
mistress : 

Thou pratest, and pratest ; serve with thy trencher, hence ! 

\^Beats him in. 

Enter Aufidius with the second Servant. 

Anf. Where is this fellow? 

2 Serv. Here, sir : I'd have beaten him like a dog, but 
for disturbing the lords within. \_The two Servants retire. 

Auf. Whence comest thou? what wouldest thou? thy 
name? 
Why speak'st not ? speak, man : what's thy name ? 

Cor. \_Unmuffling~\ If, Tullus, 

Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not 
Think me the man I am, necessity 
Commands me name myself. 

Auf. What is thy name ? 

Cor. A name unmusical to th' Volscians' ears, 
And harsh in sound to thine. 

Auf. Say, what's thy name ? 

Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face 
Bears a command in't ; though thy tackle's torn, 
Thou show'st a noble vessel : what's thy name ? 

Cor. Prepare thy brow to frown. Know'st thou me yet? 

Auf. I know thee not ; thy name ? 

Cor. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done 
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces 
Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may 



SCENE V. CORIOLANUS. I47 

My surname, Coriolanus : the painful service, 

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood 

Shed for my thankless country, are requited 

But with that surname ; a good memory, 3 

And witness of the malice and displeasure 

Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains -. 

The cruelty and envy of the people, 

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who 

Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest ; 

And suffer'd me by th' voice of slaves to be 

Whoop'd out of Rome. Now, this extremity 

Hath brought me to thy hearth ; not out of hope — 

Mistake me not — to save my life ; for, if 

I had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world 

I would have 'voided thee ; but in mere spite, 

To be full quit 4 of those my banishers, 

Stand I before thee here. Then, if thou hast 

A heart of wreak 5 in thee, that will revenge 

Thine own particular wrongs, and stop those maims 

Of shame 6 seen through thy country, speed thee straight, 

And make my misery serve thy turn : so use it, 

That my revengeful services may prove 

As benefits to thee ; for I will fight 

Against my canker'd 7 country with the spleen 

3 Memory is here used for memorial or reminder ; that which recalls ta 
memory. A frequent usage. See King Lear, page 186, note 2. 

4 Quit for quited, and in the sense of requited ; that is avenged. 

5 Wreak is an old term for revenge. So in Titus Andronicus : " Take 
wreak on Rome for this ingratitude." 

6 " Maims of shame " is shameful maims ; probably meaning disreputable 
losses of territory. 

7 Shakespeare uses canker, noun and verb, in four distinct senses. I am 
not quite clear in what sense it is used here ; probably in that of a malignant 
sore, like cancer. See Romeo and Juliet, page 39, note 11. 



I48 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

Of all the under fiends. But, if so be 

Thou darest not this, and that to prove more fortunes 

Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am 

Longer to live most weary, and present 

My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice ; 

Which not to cut would show thee but a fool, 

Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate, 

Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast, 

And cannot live but to thy shame, unless 

It be to do thee service. 

Auf. O Marcius, Marcius ! 

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart 
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter 
Should from out yonder cloud speak divine things, 
And say 'Tis true, I'd not believe him more 
Than thee, all-noble Marcius. Let me twine 
Mine arms about that body, where-against 
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke, 
And scarr'd the Moon with splinters : 8 here I clip 
The anvil of my sword ; 9 and do contest 
As hotly and as nobly with thy love 
As ever in ambitious strength I did 
Contend against thy valour. Know, thou first, 10 
I loved the maid I married ; never man 

8 The idea, or the expression, of scarring the Moon is hyperbolical 
enough. We have a like expression in King Richard III., v. 3 : " Amaze the 
welkin with your broken staves'.' See Critical Notes. 

9 To clip is to embrace. Repeatedly so. Aufidius calls Coriolanus the 
anvil of his sword, because he has in days past laid as heavy blows upon 
him as a smith strikes on his anvil. 

10 That is, thou first ox foremost of men. As Mr. P. A. Daniel observes, 
"Aufidius addresses Coriolanus throughout in superlatives, — 'All-noble 
Marcius ! ' ' Thou noble thing ! ' ' Thou Mars ! ' ' Most absolute sir." " 



SCENE v. CORIOLANUS. 149 

Sigh'd truer breath : but, that I see thee here, 

Thou noble thing ! more dances my rapt heart 

Than when I first my wedded mistress saw 

Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars ! I tell thee, 

We have a power on foot ; and I had purpose 

Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn, 

Or lose mine arm for't : thou hast beat me out 11 

Twelve several times, and I have nightly since 

Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me ; 

We have been down together in my sleep, 

Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat, 

And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius 

Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that 

Thou art thence banish' d, we would muster all 

From twelve to seventy ; and, pouring war 

Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome, 

Like a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in, 

And take our friendly Senators by th' hands ; 

Who now are here taking their leaves of me, 

Who am prepared against your territories, 

Though not for Rome itself. 

Cor. You bless me, gods ! 

Auf. Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have 
The leading of thine own revenges, take 
Th' one half of my commission ; and set down — ■ 
As best thou art experienced, since thou know'st 
Thy country's strength and weakness — thine own ways ; 
Whether to knock against the gates of Rome, 
Or rudely visit them in parts remote, 
To fright them, ere destroy. But come thou in : 

H Out for outright, as we should say ; that is, thoroughly. 



I50 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

Let me commend thee first to those that shall 
Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes ! 
And more a friend than e'er an enemy ; 
Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand : most welcome ! 
\_Exeunt Coriolanus and Aufidius. — - The 
two Servants come forward. 

1 Serv. Here's a strange alteration ! 

2 Serv. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him 
with a cudgel ; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made 
a false report of him. 

1 Serv. What an arm he has 1 he turn'd me about with his 
finger and his thumb as one would set up a top. 

2 Serv. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something 
in him : he had, sir, a kind of face, methought, — I cannot 
tell how to term it. 

1 Serv. He had so ; looking as it were, — Would I were 
hang'd, but I thought there was more in him than I could think. 

2 Serv. So did I, I'll be sworn : he is simply the rarest 
man i' the world. 

1 Serv. I think he is ; but a greater soldier than he you 
wot on. 

2 Serv. Who ? my master ? 

1 Serv. Nay, it's no matter for that. 

2 Serv. Worth six on him. 

1 Serv. Nay, not so neither ; but I take him to be the 
greater soldier. 

2 Serv. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that : 
for the defence of a town our general is excellent. 

1 Serv. Ay, and for an assault too. 

Re-enter the third Servant. 
J Serv. O slaves, I can tell you news, — news, you rascals ! 



SCENE V. CORIOLANUS. 151 

I and 2 Serv. What, what, what ? let's partake. 

3 Seii). I would not be a Roman, of all nations ; I had 
as lief be a condemn 'd man. 

1 and 2 Serv. Wherefore ? wherefore ? 

3 Serv. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our gen- 
eral, — Caius Marcius. 

1 Serv. Why do you say thwack our general? 

3 Serv. I do not say thwack our general ; but he was 
always good enough for him. 

2 Serv. Come, we are fellows and friends : he was ever 
too hard for him ; I have heard him say so himself. 

1 Serv. He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth 
on't : before Corioli he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a 
carbonado. 

2 Serv. An he had been cannibally given, he might have 
broil'd and eaten him too. 

1 Serv. But, more of thy news. 

3 Serv. Why, he is so made on here within as if he were 
son and heir to Mars ; set at upper end o' the table ; no 
question ask'd him by any of the Senators, but they stand 
bald before him : our general himself makes a mistress of 
him; sanctifies himself with's hand, 12 and turns up the white 
o' the eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, 
our general is cut i' the middle, and but one half of what he 
was yesterday ; for the other has half, by the entreaty and 
grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says, and sowl 13 the 

12 Considers the touch of his hand as holy; clasps it with the same rever- 
ence as a lover would clasp the hand of his mistress. 

13 To sowl is to pull by the ears. It is still provincially in use for pulling, 
dragging, or lugging. Heywood uses it in his comedy called Loves Mistress, 
1636 : " Venus will sowle me by the ears for this." And in a letter from 
Mr. Garrard to Lord Strafford : "A lieutenant soled him well by the ears, 
and drew him by the hair about the room." 



152 CORIOLANUS. act IV. 

porter of Rome gates by th' ears : he will mow all down 
before him, and leave his passage poll'd. 14 

2 Serv. And he's as like to do't as any man I can 
imagine. 

j Serv. Do't ! he will do't ; for, look you, sir, he has as 
many friends as enemies ; which friends, sir, as it were, durst 
not, look you, sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends 
whilst he's in directitude. 15 

1 Serv. Directitude ! what's that ? 

J Serv. But, when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, 
and the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like 
conies after rain, and revel all with him. 

1 Serv. But when goes this forward ? 

3 Serv. To-morrow ; to-day ; presently ; you shall have 
the drum struck up this afternoon : 'tis, as it were, a parcel 
of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips. 

2 Serv. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. 
This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase tailors, and 
breed ballad-makers. 

1 Serv. Let me have war, say I ; it exceeds peace as far 
as day does night ; it's sprightly, waking, audible, and full of 
vent. 16 Peace is a very apoplexy, a lethargy ; mute, deaf, 
sleepy, insensible : and it makes men hate one another. 



14 To poll is to crop close, to shear ; and has all the figurative meanings 
of tondo in Latin. To pill and poll was to plunder and strip. 

15 Probably meant as a blunder for discreditude ; the servant endeavour- 
ing to say something very grand and fine. 

16 Full of vent has puzzled the editors vastly ; and we are at last indebted 
to The Edinburgh Review, October, 1872, for what seems a right explana- 
tion of it : " Vent is a technical term in hunting, to express the scenting of the 
game by the hounds employed in the chase." This the writer shows by the 
following quotations from a popular manual of hunting in Shakespeare's 
day : " My liege, I went this morning on my quest ; My hound did sticke, 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 1 53 

3 Serv. Reason ; because they then less need one an- 
other. The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as 
cheap as Volscians. They are rising, they are rising. 

All Three. In, in, in, in ! \_Exeunt. 



Scene VI. — Rome. A public Place. 
Enter Sicinius and Brutus. 

Sic. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him ; 
His remedies are tame : the present peace 
And quietness of the people, which before 
Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends 
Blush that the world goes well ; who rather had, 
Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold 
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see 
Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going 
About their functions friendly. 

Bru. We stood to't in good time. Is this Menenius? 

Sic. 'Tis he, 'tis he : O, he is grown most kind 

Of late. — 

Enter Menenius. 

Hail, sir ! 
Bru. Hail, sir ! 

Men. Hail to you both ! 

Sic. Your Coriolanus, sir, is not much miss'd 
But with his friends : the commonwealth doth stand ; 

and seemed to vent some beast." And again : " And when my hound doth 
straine upon good vent, I must confesse the same doth me content." The 
writer then adds : "To strain at the leash 'upon good vent' is, in Shake- 
speare's phrase, to be ' full of vent ' " ; or, in other words, keenly excited, full 
of pluck and courage, of throbbing energy and impetuous desire ; in a word, 
full of all the kindling stir and commotion of anticipated conflict. 



154 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT IV. 



And so would do, were he more angry at it. 

Men. All's well ; and might have been much better, if 
He could have temporized. 1 

Sic. Where is he, hear you ? 

Men. Nay, I hear nothing : his mother and his wife 
Hear nothing from him. 

Enter three or four Citizens. 

Citizens. The gods preserve you both ! 

Sic. God- den, 2 our neighbours. 

Bru. God-den to you all, god-den to you all. 

i Cit. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees, 
Are bound to pray for both you. 

Sic. Live, and thrive ! 

Bru. Farewell, kind neighbours : we wish'd Coriolanus 
Had loved you as we did. 

Citizens. Now the gods keep you ! 

Both Trib. Farewell, farewell. \_Exeunt Citizens. 

Sic. This is a happier and more comely time 
Than when these fellows ran about the streets 
Crying confusion. 

Bru. Caius Marcius was 

A worthy officer i' the war ; but insolent, 
O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking, 
Self-loving, — 

Sic. And affecting 3 one sole throne, 

1 To temporize is to comply with the exigencies of the time ; or to dis- 
semble, to play Sir Prudence, and so abide one's time. See The Winter's 
Tale, page 54, note 45. 

2 God-den or good den, is an old colloquialism for good even or good day. 
The Poet has it repeatedly. See Romeo and "Juliet, page 86, note 23. 

3 To affect a thing, as the word is here used, is to crave it, to have a pas- 
sion/or it. See King Henry the Eighth, page 45, note 10. 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 155 

Without assistance. 

Men. Nay, I think not so. 

Sic. We should by this, to all our lamentation, 
If he had gone forth Consul, so have found it. 

Bru. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome 
Sits safe and still without him. 

Enter an ^dile. 

Aid. Worthy tribunes, 

There is a slave, whom we have put in prison, 
Reports, the Volsces with two several powers 
Are enter'd in the Roman territories, 
And with the deepest malice of the war 
Destroy what lies before 'em. 

Men. 'Tis Aufidius, 

Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment, 
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world ; 
Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome, 
And durst not once peep out. 

Sic. Come, what talk you 

Of Marcius ? 

Bru. Go see this rumourer whipp'd. — It cannot be 
The Volsces dare break with us. 

Men. Cannot be ! 

We have rec6rd that very well it can ; 
And three examples of the like have been 
Within my age. But reason 4 with the fellow, 
Before you punish him, where he heard this ; 
Lest you shall chance to whip your information, 
And beat the messenger who bids beware 
Of what is to be dreaded. 

4 To reason, again, for to talk or converse. See page 69, note 9. 



I56 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

Sic. Tell not me : 

I know this cannot be. 

Bru. Not possible. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. The nobles in great earnestness are going 
All to the Senate-house : some news is come 
That turns their countenances. 

Sic. 'Tis this slave ; — 

Go whip him 'fore the people's eyes ; — his raising ; 
Nothing but his report. 

Mess. Yes, worthy sir, 

The slave's report is seconded ; and more, 
More fearful, is deliver'd. 

Sic. What more fearful? 

Mess. It is spoke freely out of many mouths — 
How probable I do not know — that Marcius, 
Join'd with Aundius, leads a power 'gainst Rome, 
And vows revenge as spacious as between 
The young'st and oldest thing. 5 

Sic. This is most likely ! 

Bru. Raised only, that the weaker sort may wish 
Good Marcius home again. 

Sic. The very trick on't. 

Men. This is unlikely : 
He and Aundius can no more atone 6 
Than violentest contrarieties. 

Enter a second Messenger. 

2 Mess. You are sent for to the Senate : 

5 So comprehensive as to include all, from the youngest to the oldest. 

6 To atone is to unite or be reconciled, to at-one. Repeatedly so. 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 157 

A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius 
Associated with Aufidius, rages 
Upon our territories ; and have already 
O'erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took 
What lay before them. 

Enter Cominius. 

Com. O, you have made good work ! 

Men. What news ? what news ? 

Com. You've holp to ravish your own daughters, and 
To melt the city leads upon your pates ; 
To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses ; — 

Men. What's the news ? what's the news ? 

Com. — Your temples burned in their cement; 7 and 
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined 
Into 8 an auger's bore. 

Men. Pray now, your news? — 

You've made fair work, I fear me. — Pray, your news ? 
If Marcius should be join'd wi' th' Volscians, — 

Com. If ! 

He is their god : he leads them like a thing 
Made by some other deity than Nature, 
That shapes man better ; and they follow him, 
Against us brats, with no less confidence 
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies, 
Or butchers killing flies. 

Men. You've made good work, 

You and your apron-men ; you that stood so much 

7 "In for into ; the very walls penetrated and crumbled by the fire." So 
says Mr. Whitelaw : Heath explains it, " Burned with whatever serves to 
cement and hold them together." 

8 Into for witJwi ; as, just before, in for into. See Tempest, page 63, note 73. 



158 CORIOLANUS. ACT IV, 

Upon the voice of occupation and 
The breath of garlic-eaters ! 9 

Com. He will shake 

Your Rome about your ears. 

Men. As Hercules 

Did shake down mellow fruit. 10 — You've made fair work ! 

Bru. But is this true, sir ? 

Com. Ay ; and you'll look pale 

Before you find it other. All the regions 
Do smilingly revolt ; and who resist 
Are mock'd for valiant ignorance, 
And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him? 
Your enemies and his find something in him. 

Men. We are all undone, unless 
The noble man have mercy. 

Com. Who shall ask it? 

The tribunes cannot do't for shame ; the people 
Deserve such pity of him as the wolf 
Does of the shepherds : for his best friends, if they 
Should say, Be good to Rome, they charged him even 
As those should do that had deserved his hate, 
And therein show'd like enemies. 11 

Men. 'Tis true : 

If he were putting to my house the brand 
That should consume it, I have not the face 
To say, ' 'Beseech yoit, cease. — You've made fair hands, 
You and your crafts ! you've crafted fair ! 

9 To smell of. garlic was a brand of vulgarity ; as to smell of leeks was no 
less so among the Roman people. 

10 A ludicrous allusion to the apples of Hesperides. 

11 " They charged, and therein show'd" has here the force of " they would 
charge, and therein show!' 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 1 59 

Com. You've brought 

A trembling upon Rome, such as was never 
So incapable of help. 

Both Trib. Say not, we brought it. 

Men. How ! Was it we ? we loved him ; but, like beasts 
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, 
Who did hoot him out o' the city. 

Com. But I fear 

They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius, 
The ^cjmdjiairiejDf men, obeys his points 12 
As if he were his officer : desperation 
Is all the policy, strength, and defence, 
That Rome can make against them. 

Enter a troop of Citizens. 

Men. Here come the clusters. 

And is Aufidius with him ? — You are they 
That made the air unwholesome, when you cast 
Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at 
Coriolanus' exile.. Now he's coming; 
And not a hair upon a soldier's head 
Which will not prove a whip : as many coxcombs 
As you threw caps up will he tumble down, 
And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter ; 
If he could burn us all into one coal, 
We have deserved it. 

Citizens. Faith, we hear fearful news. 

i Cit. For mine own part, 

When I said, banish him, I said, 'twas pity. 

2 Cit. And so did I. 

12 Points probably means the same here as in The Tempest, i. 2. .- " But 
then exactly do 'appoints of my command." 



l6o CORIOLANUS. ACT IV. 

j Cit. And so did I ; and, to say the truth, so did very 
many of us : that we did, we did for the best ; and though 
we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against 
our will. 

Com. Ye're goodly things, you voices ! 

Men. You have made 

Good work, you and your cry ! 13 — Shall's to the Capitol? 

Com. O, ay, what else? \_Exeunt Comin. a?id Menen. 

Sic. Go, masters, get you home ; be not dismay'd : 
These are a side that would be glad to have 
This true which they so seem to fear. Go home, 
And show no sign of fear. 

i Cit. The gods be good to us ! — Come, masters, let's 
home. I ever said we were i' the wrong when we banish'd 
him. 

2 Cit. So did we all. But, come, let's home. 

\_Exeunt Citizens. 

Bru. I do not like this news. 

Sic. Nor I. 

Bru. Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth 
Would buy this for a lie ! 

Sic. Pray, let us go. \_Exeunt 



Scene VII. — A Catnft, at a small distance from Rome. 

Enter Aufidius and his Lieutenant. 

Auf. Do they still fly to th' Roman ? 
Lieu. I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but 
Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat, 

33 Cry for pack, as before. See page 134, note 8. 



SCENE VII. CORIOLANUS. l6l 

Their talk at table, and their thanks at end ; 
And you are darken'd in this action, sir, 
Even by your own. 

Auf. I cannot help it now, 

Unless, by using means, I lame the foot 
Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier, 
Even to my person, than I thought he would 
When first I did embrace him : yet his nature 
In that's no changeling ; and I must excuse 
What cannot be amended. 

Lieu. Yet I wish, sir, — 

I mean for your particular, — you had not 
Join'd in commission with him • but either 
Had borne the action of yourself, or else 
To him had left it solely. 

Auf. I understand thee well ; and be thou sure, 
When he shall come to his account, he knows not 
What I can urge against him. Although it seems, 
And so he thinks, and is no less apparent 
To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly, 
And shows good husbandry for th' Volscian State, 
Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon 
As draw his sword ; yet he hath left undone 
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine, 
Whene'er we come to our account. 

Lieu. Sir, I beseech you, think you he 11 carry Rome ? 

Auf. All places yield to him ere he sits down ; 
And the nobility of Rome are his ; 
The Senators and patricians love him too ; 
The tribunes are no soldiers ; and their people 
Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty 
T' expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome 



l62 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT IV. 



As is the osprey to the fish, 1 who takes it 

By sovereignty of nature. First he was 

A noble servant to them ; but he could not 

Carry his honours even : whether 'twas pride, 

Which out of daily fortune ever taints 

The happy man ; 2 whether defect of judgment, 

To fail in the disposing of those chances 

Which he was lord of; or whether nature, 

Not to be other than one thing, not moving 

From th' casque to th' cushion, 3 but commanding peace 

Even with the same austerity and garb 

As he controll'd the war ; but one of these — 

As he hath spices of them all, not all, 4 

For I dare so far free him — made him fear'd, 

So hated, and so banish'd : but he has a merit, 

To choke it in the utterance. 5 So our virtues 



1 As fish, overcome by fear, or by a sort of fascination, surrender them- 
selves to the osprey. So in Peele's Battle of Alcazar, 1594: 

I will provide thee with a princely osprey, 
That, as she flieth over fish in pools, 
The fish shall turn their glittering bellies up, 
And thou shalt take thy liberal choice of all. 

2 " The happy man " is the fortunate or the prosperous man. Like the 
Latin felix. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. 

3 Aufidius assigns three probable reasons for the miscarriage of Corio- 
lanus ; pride, which easily follows an uninterrupted train of success ; unskil- 
fulness to regulate the consequences of his own victories ; a stubborn 
uniformity of nature, which could not make the proper transition from the 
casque to the cushion or chair of civil authority ; but acted with the same 
despotism in peace as in war. — JOHNSON. 

4 " He has a touch or taste of all the faults in question ; but has not them 
all in their full force, or not altogether'' 

5 But his merit as a soldier is so great, that the very name of his fault 
must stick in the throat of his accusers. 



SCENE VII. CORIOLANUS. 163 

Lie in th' interpretation of the time ; 6 

And power, unto itself most commendable, 7 

Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair, 

T' extol what it hath done. 8 

One fire drives .out one fire ; 9 one nail, one nail ; 

6 Our virtues depend, for their good name, on the particular exigencies 
in which we are called to act ; are virtues, or the reverse, according to the 
construction which the time puts upon them. So, in reference to the hero, 
that overbearing, domineering spirit, which is praised as a virtue in military 
command, will be resented as a vice in civil life. As Mr. Whitelaw well 
expresses it, " The soldier who is all soldier is misinterpreted in time of 
peace; for his unfitness for peace is seen, his fitness for war is not seen." 

7 That is, the power which, having been nobly won in war, is therefore 
conscious of deserving well, and so commends itself unto itself, and can 
nowise understand why it should be odious or unfitting in time of peace. 
The idea running through the speech is, that the hero, carrying his military 
style and habits into civil life, and using his power so harshly as to provoke 
hatred, will become as intolerable to the Volscians after he has taken Rome 
as he did to the Romans after he had taken Corioli. 

8 Shakespeare repeatedly uses evident in the sense of certain or inevitable. 
So in the next scene: "We must find an evident calamity, though we had 
our wish, which side should win." A chair refers to the sella curulis, the 
distinctive official seat of the higher Roman magistracies. " A chair, to 
extol " is a chair that extols ; just as, a little before, " a merit, to choke " is a 
merit that chokes. The speaker's argument is, that Coriolanus, by his arro- 
gance and tyranny in peace, will surely and speedily kill the popularity he 
has gained in war. And so the meaning here is, that power, joined to a 
haughty, domineering temper, and loved and gloried in for its own sake, 
hath no grave so certain, or so imminent, as a chair of state bestowed in 
honour and extolment of its deeds. Or, to put the matter in a concrete form, 
let Coriolanus, with his habits of military prerogative, and of lording it over 
all about him, be once advanced to a place of civil authority, and he will 
soon become an object of public hatred ; so that the very seat which re- 
wards and blazons his exploits will be sure to prove his ruin and the tomb 
of his power. See Critical Notes. 

9 That is, heat expels heat; alluding to the old notion of curing a burn 
by holding the burnt place up to the fire. Shakespeare has the same allu- 
sion repeatedly. So in Julius Ccesar, iii. 1 : "As fire drives out fire, so pity 
pity." See, also, Romeo and Juliet, page 47, note 5. 



164 CORIOLANUS. ACT v. 

Rights by rights fouler, strengths by strengths, do fail. 10 

Come, let's away. — When, Caius, Rome is thine, 

Thou'rt poor'st of all ; then shortly art thou mine. \_Exeunt. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Rome. A public Place. 
Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus, and others. 

Men. No, I'll not go : you hear what he hath said 
Which was sometime his general ; who loved him 
In a most dear particular. He call'd me father : 
But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him ; 
A mile before his tent fall down, and knee 
The way into his mercy : 1 nay, if he coy'd 
To hear 2 Cominius speak, I'll keep at home. 

Com. He would not seem to know me. 

Men. Do you hear? 

Com. Yet one time he did call me by my name : 
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops 

10 The meaning of this line, expressed in full, probably is, that the better 
rights succumb to the worse, and the nobler strengths to the meaner ; the 
sense of fail being anticipated in the first clause, and that of fouler con- 
tinued over the second. Here, as elsewhere, Aufidius is fully conscious 
of the foulness of his purposes. The only thing he cares for is to get a sure 
twist on his antagonist. See Critical Notes. 

1 To knee one's way is to go on one's knees, as to foot one's way is to go - 
on one's feet. So, some one having remarked that Lord Malmesbury had 
been a long time in getting to Paris, Burke is said to have replied, " No 
wonder ; every step he took was on his knees." 

2 Coy'd to hear is the same as was coy of hearing ; that is, was distant 
and reserved, — was shy and scrupulous of lending his ear. 



SCENE I. 



CORIOLANUS. 165 



That we have bled together. Coriolanus 
He would not answer to ; forbade all names ; 
He was a kind of nothing, titleless, 
Till he had forged himself a name o' the fire 
Of burning Rome. 

Men. Why, so ; you've made good work ! 

A pair of tribunes that have wreck'd fair Rome 
To make coals cheap, — a noble memory ! 3 

Com. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon 
When it was least expected : he replied, 
It was a rare petition of a State 
To one whom they had punish'd. 

Men. Very well : 

Could he say less ? 

Com. I offer'd to awaken his regard 
For's private friends : his answer to me was, 
He could not stay to pick them in a pile 
Of noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly, 
For one poor grain or two, to leave't unburnt, 
And still to nose th' offence. 

Men. For one poor grain or two ! 

I'm one of those ; his mother, wife, his child, 
And this brave fellow too, we are the grains : 
You are the musty chaff; and you are smelt 
Above the Moon : we must be burnt for you. 

Sic. Nay, pray, be patient : if you refuse your aid 
In this so never-needed help, yet do not 
Upbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you 
Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue, 

3 The meaning is, " who have erected a noble memorial or monument for 
themselves by wrecking fair Rome in order to cheapen the price of fuel. 
We have had memory just so before. See page 147, note 3. 



l66 CORIOLANUS. 



ACT V. 



More than the instant army we can make, 4 
Might stop our countryman. 

Men. No, I'll not meddle. 

Sic. Pray you now, go to him. 

Men. What should I do ? 

Bru. Only make trial what your love can do 
For Rome, towards Marcius. 

Men. Well, and say that Marcius 

Return me, as Cominius is return'd, 
Unheard ; what then ? or not unheard, but as 
A discontented friend, grief-shot with his 
Unkindness ? 

Sic. Say't be so, yet your good will 

Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure 
As you intended well. 5 

Men. I'll undertake 't : 

I think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip 
And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me. 
He was not taken well ; he had not dined : 
The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then 
We pout upon the morning, are unapt 
To give or to forgive ; but, when we've stuff 'd 
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood 
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 
Than in our priest-like fasts : therefore I'll watch him 
Till he be dieted to my request, 
And then I'll set upon him. 

Bru. You know the very road into his kindness, 
And cannot lose your way. 

4 That is, the army we can levy on the instant, or at present. 

5 " Such gratitude as will accord with the measure of your good inten* 
tions." After often means according to. 



SCENE I. CORIOLANUS. 1 6/ 

Men. Good faith, I'll prove him. 

Speed how it will, you shall ere long have knowledge 
Of my success. 6 \_Exit 

Com. He'll never hear him. 

Sic. Not? 

Com. I tell you, he does sit in gold, 7 his eye 
Red as 'twould burn Rome ; and his injury 
The jailer to his pity. 8 I kneel'd before him ; 
'Twas very faintly he said Rise ; dismiss'd me 
Thus, with his speechless hand : what he would do, 
He sent in writing after me, what he would not ; 
Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions : 9 
So that all hope is vain, 
Unless in's noble mother and his wife ; 
Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him 
For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence, 
And with our fair entreaties haste them on. \_Exeunt 

6 Success, again, in its Latin sense of result. See page 48, note 26. 

7 This is well explained from North's Plutarch : " He was set in his 
chair of state, with a marvellous and unspeakable majesty." 

8 His remembrance of the wrong done him kept his pity under lock 
and key. 

9 A passage hard to be understood at the best, and still more obscure as 
commonly pointed, thus : " What he would do, he sent in writing after me ; 
what he would not, bound with an oath, to yield to his conditions " : which 
is severing "what he would do" from " bound with an oath," and "what 
he would not " from " he sent in writing after me." As here given the 
sense may be rendered thus : " He sent in writing after me both what he 
would do and what he would not ; binding the whole with an oath that we 
should yield to his conditions." See Critical Notes. 



1 68 CORIOLANUS. ACT V. 



Scene II. ■ — An Outpost of the Volscian Camp before Rome. 
The Sentinels at their Stations. 

Enter to them Menenius. 

i Sen. Stay : whence are you ? 

2 Sen. Stand, and go back. 

Men. You guard like men ; 'tis well : but, by your leave, 
I am an officer of State, and come 
To speak with Coriolanus. 

i Sen. From whence ? 

Men. From Rome. 

i Sen. You may not pass, you must return : our general 
Will no more hear from thence. 

2 Sen. You'll see your Rome embraced with fire, before 
You'll speak with Coriolanus. 

Men. Good my friends, 

If you have heard your general talk of Rome, 
And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks l 
My name hath touch'd your ears : it is Menenius. 

i Sen. Be't so ; go back : the virtue of your name 
Is not here passable. 

Men. I tell thee, fellow, 

Thy general is my lover : 9 I have been 
The book of his good acts, whence men have read 
His fame unparallel'd, haply amplified ; 
For I have ever amplified my friends — 
Of whom he's chief — with all the size that verity 
Would without lapsing suffer : nay, sometimes, 

1 Lots to blanks is chances to nothing. 

2 The use of lover for friend was very common. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 1 69 

Like to a bowl upon a subtle 3 ground, 
I've tumbled past the throw ; and in his praise 
Have almost stamp'd the leasing : 4 therefore, fellow, 
I must have leave to pass. 

1 Sen. Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his be- 
half as you have uttered words in your own, you should not 
pass here ; no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live 
chastely. Therefore, go back. 

Men. Pr'ythee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, 
always factionary 5 on the party of your general. 

1 Sen. Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you 
have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you 
cannot pass. Therefore, go back. 

Men. Has he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak 
with him till after dinner. 

1 Sen. You are a Roman, are you? 

Men. I am, as thy general is. 

1 Sen. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can 
you, when you have push'd out your gates the very defender 
of them, and, in a violent popular ignorance, given your 
enemy your shield, think to front his revenges with the easy 
groans of old women, the virginal palms 6 of your daughters, 
or with the palsied intercession of such a decay'd dotant as 
you seem to be ? Can you think to blow out the intended 
fire your city is ready to flame in with such weak breath as 



3 Subtle here means smooth, level. So in Ben Jonson's Chlorida : 
" Tityus's breast is counted the subtlest bowling-ground in all Tartary." 

4 Almost given the stamp of truth to a lie. See Twelfth Night, page 46, 
note 9. 

5 Factionary seems to be used here in its primitive sense ; active. 

6 Virginal palms of course means the palms or hands of virgins held up 
in supplication. 



1 70 CORIOLANUS. ACT v. 

this ? No, you are deceived ; therefore back to Rome, and 
prepare for your execution : you are condemn'd, our general 
has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon. 

Men. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would 
use me with estimation. 

2 Sen. Come, my captain knows you not. 

Men. I mean, thy general. 

1 Sen. My general cares not for you. Back, I say, go \ 
lest I let forth your half-pint of blood : back ; that's the 
utmost of your having ; back. 

Men. Nay, but, fellow, fellow, — 

Enter Coriolanus and Aufidius. 

Cor. What's the matter? 

Men. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you : 
you shall now know that I am in estimation ; you shall per- 
ceive that a Jack 7 guardant cannot office me from my son 
Coriolanus : guess, but by my entertainment with him, if 
thou stand'st not i' the state of hanging, or of some death 
more long in spectatorship, and crueller in suffering y behold 
now presently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee. 
— \To Cor.] The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about 
thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy 
old father Menenius does ! O my son, my son ! thou art 
preparing fire for us ; look thee, here's water to quench it. 
I was hardly moved to come to thee ; but, being assured 
none but myself could move thee, I have been blown out of 
our gates with sighs ; and conjure thee to pardon Rome, 
and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage 

7 Equivalent to yack in office, one who is proud of his petty consequence, 
Companion was used as we use fellow. 



SCENE II. CORIOLANUS. 171 

thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here, — ■ 
this, who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee. 

Cor. Away ! 

Men. How ! away ! 

Cor. Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs 
Are servanted to others : though I owe 
My revenge properly, my remission lies 
In Volscian breasts. 8 That we have been familiar, 
Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather 
Than pity note how much. 9 Therefore, be gone. 
Mine ears against your suits are stronger than 
Your gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee, 
Take this along ; I writ it for thy sake, [Gives a letter. 

And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius, 
I will not hear thee speak. — This man, Aufidius, 
Was my beloved in Rome : yet thou behold 'st ! 

Auf. You keep a constant temper. 

[Exeunt Coriolanus and Aufidius. 

1 Sen. Now, sir, is your name Menenius? 

2 Sen. 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power : you know 
the way home again. 

1 Sen. Do you hear how we are shent 10 for keeping your 
greatness back? 

2 Sen. What cause do you think I have to swoon? 
Men. I neither care for the world nor your general : for 

such things as you, I can scarce think there's any, ye're so 
slight. He that hath a will to die by himself 11 fears it not 

8 " Though my revenge is my own, or proper to myself, in the power of 
forgiveness the Volscians are joined." Owe for own, as usual. 

9 " Oblivious ingratitude shall kill our old friendship, rather than pity 
shall give any sign how strong it was." 

10 Shent is an old word for rebuked or scolded at. 

11 That is, by his own hands. 



1 72 CORIOLANUS. act V. 

from another : let your general do his worst. For you, be 
that you are, long ; and your misery increase with your age ! 
I say to you, as I was said to, Away ! \_Exit 

1 Sen. A noble fellow, I warrant him. 

2 Sen. The worthy fellow is our general : he's the rock, 
the oak not to be wind-shaken. \_Exeunt 



Scene III. — The Tent of Coriolanus. 
Enter Coriolanus, Aufidius, and others. 

Cor. We will before the walls of Rome to-morrow 
Set down our host. — My partner in this action, 
You must report to th' Volscian lords, how plainly 1 
I have borne this business. 

Auf. Only their ends 

You have respected; stopp'd your ears against 
The general suit of Rome ; never admitted 
A private whisper, no, not with such friends 
That thought them sure of you. 

Cor. This last old man, 

Whom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome, 
Loved me above the measure of a father ; 
Nay, godded me, indeed. Their latest refuge 
Was to send him ; for whose old love I have, 
Though I show'd sourly to him, once more ofFer'd 
The first conditions, which they did refuse, 
And cannot now accept ; to grace him only 
That thought he could do more, a very little 
I've yielded to : fresh embassies and suits, 

1 Plainly is openly ; remotely from artifice or concealment. 



scene in. CORIOLANUS. 173 

Nor from the State nor private friends, hereafter 

Will I lend ear to. — \_Shcut within. 

Ha ! what shout is this ? 
Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow 
In the same time 'tis made ? I will not. — 

Enter, in mourning habits, Virgilia, Volumnia, leading 
young Marcius, Valeria, and Attendants. 

My wife comes foremost ; then the honour'd mould 

Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand 

The grandchild to her blood. — But out, affection ! 

All bond and privilege of nature, break ! 

Let it/be virtuous to be obstinate. — 

What is that curtsy worth? or those doves' eyes, 

Which can make gods forsworn ? I melt, and am not 

Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows ; 

As if Olympus to a molehill should 

In supplication nod ; and my young boy 

Hath an aspect of intercession, which 

Great Nature cries Deny not. Let the Volsces 

Plough Rome, and harrow Italy : I'll never 

Be such a gosling to obey instinct ; but stand, 

As if a man were author of himself, 

And knew no other kin. 

Vir. My lord and husband ! 

Cor. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome t 

Vir. The sorrow that delivers us thus changed 
Makes you think so. 

Cor. Like a dull actor now, 

I have forgot my part, and I am out, 
Even to a full disgrace. — Best of my flesh, 
Forgive my tyranny ; but do not say, 



174 CORIOLANUS. ACT V. 

For that, Forgive our Romans. O, a kiss 

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge ! 

Now, by the jealous Queen of Heaven, 2 that kiss 

I carried from thee, dear ; and my true lip 

Hath virgin'd it e'er since. — You gods ! I prate, 

And the most noble mother of the world 

Leave unsaluted : sink, my knee, i' the earth ; [Kneels. 

Of thy deep duty more impression show 

Than that of common sons. 

Vol. [Raising hini.~] O, stand up bless'd ! 

Whilst, with no softer cushion than the flint, 
I kneel before thee ; and unproperly 
Show duty, as mistaken all this while 
Between the child and parent. [Kneels. 

Cor. [Hastily raising her.~] What is this ? 
Your knees to me ? to your corrected son ? 
Then let the pebbles on the angry beach 
Fillip the stars ; 3 then let the mutinous winds 
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery Sun ; 
Murdering impossibility, 4 to make 
What cannot be, slight work. 

Vol. Thou art my warrior ; 

I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady? 

Cor. The noble sister of Publicola, 

2 Juno was the special guardian of marriage, and consequently the aven- 
ger of connubial perfidy. 

3 To fillip is to thump or smite. So that the image is of the enraged 
beach tossing or spitting the pebbles so high as to hit the stars ; — hyperboli- 
cal enough ! See 2 Henry IV., page 74, note 31. — We have a similar ex- 
pression in The Tempest, i. 2: "The sea, mounting to th' welkin's ' cheek, 
dashes the fire out." 

4 Putting impossibility out of existence;- causing that there be no such 
thing. 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 175 

The moon of Rome ; chaste as the icicle 
That's curded by the frost from purest snow, 
And hangs on Dian's temple. Dear Valeria ! 

Vol. This is a poor epitome of yours, 
Which by th' interpretation 5 of full time 
May show like all yourself. 

Cor. The god of soldiers, 

With the consent of supreme Jove, 6 inform 
Thy thoughts with nobleness ; that thou mayst prove 
To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars 
Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, 7 
And saving those that eye thee ! 

Vol. Your knee, sirrah. 

Cor. That's my brave boy ! 

Vol. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself, 
Are suitors to you. 

Cor. I beseech you, peace : 

Or, if you'd ask, remember this before, 
The things I have forsworn to grant 8 may never 
Be held by you denials. Do not bid me 
Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate 
Again with Rome's mechanics : tell me not 
Wherein I seem unnatural ; desire not 

5 Interpretation is here equivalent to development ; " which time will un* 
fold into a complete, full-blown image of yourself." 

6 This is inserted with great decorum. Jupiter was the tutelary god of 
Rome, and the Capitol was his temple. 

7 KJlaw is a violent blast or sudden gust of wind. Carew thus describes 
it, in his Survey of Cornwall : " One kind of these storms they call ajlaw, or 
Jlaugh, which is a mighty gale of wind passing suddenly to the shore, and 
working strong effects upon whatsoever it encounters in its way." 

8 "Forsworn to grant" is sworn not to grant, and so forsworn, or per- 
jured, in or by granting. Still another instance of the infinitive used gerun' 
dively. 



1/6 CORIOLANUS. ACT v. 

T' allay my rages and revenges with 
Your colder reasons. 

Vol. O, no more, no more ! 

You've said you will not grant us any thing ; 
For we have nothing else to ask, but that 
Which you deny already : yet we'll ask ; 
That, if we fail in our request, the blame 
May hang upon your hardness : therefore hear us. 

Cor. Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark ; for we'll 
Hear nought from Rome in private. — Your request? 

Vol. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment 
And state of bodies would bewray what life 
We've led since thy exile. Think with thyself 
How more unfortunate than all living women 
Are we come hither ; since that thy sight, which should 
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,, 
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow ; 
Making the mother, wife, and child, to see 
The son, the husband, and the father, tearing 
His country's bowels out. And to poor we 
Thine enmity's most capital : thou barr'st us 
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort 
That all but we enjoy ; for how can we, 
Alas, how can we for our country pray, 
Whereto we're bound, together with thy victory, 
Whereto we're bound? alack, or we must lose 
The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person, 
Our comfort in the country. We must find 
An evident calamity, though we had 
Our wish, which side should win ; for either thou 
Must, as a foreign recreant, be led 
With manacles thorough our streets, or else 



SCENE III. CORIOLANUS. 177 

Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin, 
And bear the palm for having bravely shed 
Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, 
I purpose not to wait on fortune till 
These wars determine : if I cannot persuade thee 
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts 
Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner 
March to assault thy country than to tread — 
Trust to't, thou shalt not — on thy mother's womb, 
That brought thee to this world. 

Vir. Ay, and on mine, 

That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name 
Living to time. 

Young Mar. 'A shall not tread on me : 
I'll run away till I am bigger, then I'll fight. 

Cor. Not of a woman's tenderness to be, 
Requires nor child nor woman's face to see. 
I've sat too long. \_Rising. 

Vol. Nay, go not from us thus. 

If it were so that our request did tend 
To save the Romans, thereby to destroy 
The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us, 
As poisonous of your honour : no ; our suit 
Is, that you reconcile them : while the Volsces 
May say, This mercy we have show'd; the Romans, 
This we received ; and each in either side 
Give the all-haii to thee, and cry, Be bless 'd 
For making up this peace ! Thou know'st, great son, 
The end of war's uncertain ; but this certain, 
That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit 
Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name, 
Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses ; 



I78 CORIOLANUS. ACT V. 

Whose chronicle thus writ : The man was noble, 

But with his last attempt he wiped it out ; 

Destroy' d his country ; and his name remains 

To the ensuing age abhorr'd. Speak to me, son : 

Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour, 

To imitate the graces of the gods ; 

To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air, 

And yet to charge thy sulphur 9 with a bolt 

That should but rive an oak. 10 Why dost not speak ? 

Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man 

Still to remember wrongs ? — Daughter, speak you : 

He cares not for your weeping. — Speak thou, boy ; 

Perhaps thy childishness will move him more 

Than can our reasons. — There's no man in the world 

More bound to's mother ; yet here he lets me prate 

Like one i' the stocks. — Thou'st never in thy life 

Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy ; 

When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood, 

Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home, 

Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust, 

9 Sulphur is here put for lightning ; the then unknown force that pro- 
pelled the thunderbolt. The idea is of Omnipotence, able to rend the uni- 
verse in pieces, yet satisfied to charge its thunder-engines with a bolt that 
only splits an oak. 

10 A very high and noble image or expression of character ; but perhaps 
the grandeur of the image somewhat obscures the sense. The " fine strains 
of honour " intended are such as have their life in strength married to gen- 
tleness, or in a contempt of danger and death united with a tender and pitiful 
heart. The idea was evidently a favourite one with Shakespeare ; and many 
of his noblest strains of pathos turn upon a style of manhood which fears not 
power, but whose soul-storm falters into music at the touch of compassion. 
The author of Ecce Homo aptly quotes this passage as illustrating how 
" the noblest and most amiable thing is power mixed with gentleness, the 
reposing, self-restraining attitude of strength." Such graces are indeed 
Divine. See The Merchant, page 169, note 33. 



SCENE ill. CORIOLANUS. 179 

And spurn me back : but, if it be not so, 

Thou art not honest ; and the gods will plague thee, 

That thou restrain 'st from me the duty which 

To a mother's part belongs. — He turns away : 

Down, ladies ; let us shame him with our knees. 

To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride 

Than pity to our prayers. Down ; an end ; 

This is the last : so we will home to Rome, 

And die among our neighbours. — Nay, behold's : 

This boy, that cannot tell what he would have, 

But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship, 

Does reason our petition with more strength 

Than thou hast to deny't. — Come, let us go : 

This fellow had a Volscian to his mother ; 

His wife is in Corioli, and this child 

Like him by chance. 11 — Yet give us our dispatch : 

I'm hush'd until our city be a-fire, 

And then I'll speak a little. 

Cor. \After holding her by the hand in silence i\ O mother, 
mother ! 
What have you done ? Behold, the heavens do ope, 
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene 
They laugh at. O my mother, mother ! O ! 
You've won a happy victory to Rome ; 
But for your son, — - believe it, O, believe it, — 
Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd, 
If not most mortal to him. But, let it come. — 
Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars, 
I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius, 
Were you in my stead, say, would you have heard 

11 This child is not indeed his son, but only happens to resemble him. 



l80 C0R10LANUS. 



ACT V. 



A mother less ? or granted less, Aufidius ? 

Auf. I was moved withal. 

Cor. I dare be sworn you were : 

And, sir, it is no little thing to make 
Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir, 
What peace you'll make, advise me : for my part, 
I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you ; and pray you, 
Stand to me in this cause. — O mother ! wife ! 

Auf. \_Aside.~\ I'm glad thou'st set thy mercy and thy 
honour 
At difference in thee : out of that I'll work 
Myself a firmer fortune. \_The Ladies make signs to Corio. 

Cor. \_To the Ladies.] Ay, by-and-by : 
We will but drink together ; 12 and you shall bear 
A better witness back than words, which we, 
On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd. 
Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve 
To have a temple built you : all the swords 
In Italy, and her confederate arms, 
Could not have made this peace. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — Rome. A public Place. 
Enter Menenius with Sicinius. 

Men. See you yond coign o' the Capitol, yond corner- 
stone ? 

Sic. Why, what of that ? 

Men. If it be possible for you to displace it with your' 
little finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially 

12 Meaning, apparently, that Aufidius, or the Volscian leaders, and him- 
self will but delay long enough for an amicable pledge. 



SCENE IV. CORIOLANUS. l8l 

his mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope 
in't : our throats are sentenced, and stay upon 1 execution. 

Sic. Is't possible that so short a time can alter the condi- 
tion 2 of a man ? 

Men. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly ; 
yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from 
man to dragon : he has wings ; he's more than a creeping 
thing. 

Sic. He loved his mother dearly. 

Men. So did he me ; and he no more remembers his 
mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of 
his face sours ripe grapes : when he walks, he moves like an 
engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading : he is 
able to pierce a corslet with his eye ; talks like a knell, and 
his hum is a battery. He sits in his state, as a thing made 
for Alexander. 3 What he bids be done, is finish 'd with his 
bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity, and a 
heaven to throne in. 

Sic. Yes, mercy, if you report him truly. 

Men. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy 
his mother shall bring from him : there is no more mercy in 
him than there is milk in a male tiger ; that shall our poor 
city find ; and all this is 'long of you. 4 

Sic. The gods be good unto us ! 

Men. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto 
us. When we banish'd him, we respected not them; and, 
he returning to break our necks, they respect not us. 

Enter a Messenger. 

1 To stay upon means the same as to wait for. 

2 Condition, here, as usual, is temper or disposition. 

3 That is, like an image made in the likeness of Alexander. 

4 "Along of you " is because of you. So the phrase occurs repeatedly. 



1 82 CORIOLANUS. ACT V. 

Mess. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house : 
The plebeians have got your fellow-tribune, 
And hale him up and down ; all swearing, if 
The Roman ladies bring not comfort home, 
They'll give him death by inches. 

Enter a second Messenger. 

Sic. What's the news? 

2 Mess. Good news, good news ! the ladies have pre- 
vail' d, 
The Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone : 
A merrier day did never yet greet Rome, 
No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins. 

Sic. Friend, 

Art certain this is true ? 

2 Mess. Ay, sir, most certain, — 

As certain as I know the Sun is fire : 
Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it? 
Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide 
As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you ! 

\Trumpets and hautboys sounded, and drums beaten, 
all together ; shouting also, within. 
The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes. 
Tabors, and cymbals, and the shouting Romans, 
Make the Sun dance. Hark you ! \_Shouting again within. 

Men. This is good news : 

I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia 
Is worth of Consuls, Senators, patricians, 
A city full ; of tribunes, such as you, 
A sea and land full. You've pray'd well to-day : 
This morning for ten thousand of your throats 
I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy ! 

\_Shouting and music still, withitu 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 183 

Sic. First, the gods bless you for your tidings ; next, 
Accept my thankfulness. 

2 Mess. Sir, we have all 

Great cause to give great thanks. 

Sic. They're near the city ? 

2 Mess. Almost at point to enter. 

Sic, We will meet them, 

And help the joy. \_Exeunt. 

Scene V. — The Same. A Street near the Gate. 

Enter in procession, Volumnia, Virgilia, Valeria, &c, ac- 
companied by Senators, Patricians, and Citizens. 

1 Sen. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome ! 
Call all your tribes together, praise the gods, 
And make triumphant fires ; strew flowers before them : 
Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius, 
Repeal him with the welcome of his mother ; 
Cry, Welcome, ladies, welcome ! 

All. Welcome, ladies, 

Welcome ! \A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt 

Scene VI. — Corioli. A public Place. 

Enter Aufidius, with Attendants. 

Auf. Go tell the lords o' the city I am here ; 
Deliver them this paper : having read it, 
Bid them repair to th' market-place ; where I, 
Even in theirs and in the commons' ears, 
Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse 
The city ports by this hath enter'd, and 



184 CORIOLANUS. ACT V 

Intends t' appear before the people, hoping 
To purge himself with words : dispatch. — 

\_Exeunt Attendants. 

Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius's faction. 

Most welcome ! 

1 Con. How is it with our general? 

Auf Even so 

As with a man by his own alms empoison'd, 
And with his charity slain. 

2 Con. Most noble sir, 
If you do hold the same intent wherein 
You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you 

Of your great danger. 

Auf. Sir, I cannot tell : 

We must proceed as we do find the people. 

j Con. The people will remain uncertain whilst 
'Twixt you there's difference ; but the fall of either 
Makes the survivor heir of all. 

Auf. I know it ; 

And my pretext to strike at him admits 
A good construction. I raised him, and I pawn'd 
Mine honour for his truth : who being so heighten'd, 
He water' d his new plants with dews of flattery, 
Seducing so my friends ; and, to this end, 
He bow'd his nature, never known before 
But to be rough, unswayable, and fierce. 

j Con. Sir, his stoutness 
When he did stand for Consul, which he lost 
By lack of stooping, — 

Auf. That I would have spoke of. 

Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth ; 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. 1 85 

Presented to my knife his throat : I took him ; 

Made him joint-servant with me ; gave him way 

In all his own desires ; nay, let him choose 

Out of my files, his projects to accomplish, 

My best and freshest men ; served his designments 

In mine own person ; holp to reap the fame 

Which he did end all his ; 1 and took some pride 

To do myself this wrong : till, at the last, 

I seem'd his follower, not partner ; and 

He waged me with his countenance, 2 as if 

I had been mercenary. 

1 Con. So he did, my lord ; 

The army marvell'd at it ; and, in the last, 
When he had carried Rome, and that we look'd 
For no less spoil than glory, — 

Auf. There was it ; 

For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him. 
At a few drops of women's rheum, which are 
As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour 
Of our great action : therefore shall he die, 
And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark ! 
\Dru?ns and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people. 

1 It appears that end was and still is a technical term for the finishing of 
harvest-work. The Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith has produced, from recent adver- 
tisements in Gloucestershire, the phrases " well-ended wheat ricks " and " a 
rick of well-ended hay " ; meaning, apparently, stacks of wheat well stored 
&c. So that the meaning of the text is, that Coriolanus had managed to 
appropriate for his own exclusive use the whole harvest of renown which 
Aufidius had helped to gather and prepare. 

2 The sense of to wage, as here used, still lives in wages. So in Hey- 
wood's Wise Woman of Hogsdon : " I receive thee gladly to my house, and 
wage thy stay." The meaning in the text is, " He treated me as his depen- 
dent or hireling, and paid me with bland looks and patronizing airs, as a 
kind of wages." Or countenance, here, as in at least two other places, may 
mean entertainment or reception. See As You Like It, page 30, note 4. 



1 86 CORIOLANUS. ACT V. 

1 Con. Your native town you enter'd like a post, 
And had no welcomes home ; but he returns, 
Splitting the air with noise. 

2 Con. And patient fools, 
Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear 
With giving him glory. 

3 Con. Therefore, at your vantage, 
Ere he express himself, or move the people 

With what he would say, let him feel your sword, 
Which we will second. When he lies along, 
After your way his tale pronounced shall bury 
His reasons with his body. 

Auf. Say no more : 

Here come the lords. 

Enter the Lords of the City. 

Lords. You are most welcome home. 

Auf. I've not deserved it. 

But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused 
What I have written to you ? 

Lords. We have. 

i Lord. And grieve to he'ar't. 

What faults he made before the last, I think 
Might have found easy fines ; but, there to end 
Where he was to begin, and give away 
The benefit of our levies, answering us 
With our own charge, 3 making a treaty where 
There was a yielding, — this admits no excuse. 

Auf. He approaches : you shall hear him. 

3 " Instead of spoils and victory, presenting the bill, — for ourselves to 
pay." 



SCENE VI. 



CORIOLANUS. I87 



Enter Coriolanus, with drum and colours ; a crowd of Citi- 
zens with him. 

Cor. Hail, lords ! I am return 'd your soldier ; 
No more infected with my country's love 
Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting 
Under your great command. You are to know, 
That prosperously I have attempted, and, 
With bloody passage, led your wars even to 
The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home 
Do more than counterpoise a full third part 
The charges of the action. We've made peace, 
With no less honour to the Antiates 
Than shame to th' Romans ; and we here deliver, 
Subscribed by th' Consuls and patricians, 
Together with the seal o' the Senate, what 
We have compounded on. 

Auf. Read it not, noble lords ; 

But tell the traitor, in the high'st degree 
He hath abused your powers. 

Cor. Traitor ! how now ! 

Auf. Ay, traitor, Marcius ! 

Cor. Marcius ! 

Auf. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius : dost thou think 
I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name 
Coriolanus, in Corioli ? — 
You lords and heads o' the State, perfidiously 
He has betray'd your business, and given up, 
For certain drops of salt, your city Rome — 
I say, your city — to his wife and mother ; 
Breaking his oath and resolution, like 
A twist of rotten silk ; never admitting 



1 88 CORIOLANUS. act v. 

Counsel o' the war ; but at his nurse's tears 
He whined and roar'd away your victory ; 
That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart 
Look'd wondering each at other. 

Cor. Hear'st thou, Mars ? 

Auf. Name not the god, thou boy of tears ! 

Cor. Ha ! 

Auf. No more. 4 

Cor. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart 
Too great for what contains it. Boy / O slave ! — 
Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever 
I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords, 
Must give this cur the lie : and his own notion 5 — 
Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him ; that 
Must bear my beating to his grave — • shall join 
To thrust the lie unto him. 

i Lord. Peace, both, and hear me speak. 

Cor. Cut me to pieces, Volsces ! men and lads, 
Stain all your edges on me ! — Boy ! false hound ! 
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, 
That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli ; 
Alone I did it. Boy / 

Auf. Why, noble lords, 

Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune, 
Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart, 
'Fore your own eyes and ears ? 

All the Conspirators. Let him die for't ! 

Citizens. Tear him to pieces! — Do it presently!; — He 

4 No more than a boy of tears. 

6 Notion, as the context shows, is here equivalent to judgment. Repeat- 
edly so. See Macbeth, page ioi, note 16. 



SCENE VI. CORIOLANUS. I89 

kilPd my son ! — My daughter ! — He kill'd my cousin 
Marcus ! — He kill'd my father ! — 

2 Lord. Peace, ho ! — no outrage ; — peace ! 
The man is noble, and his fame folds-in 
This orb o' the Earth. 6 His last offences to us 
Shall have judicious 7 hearing. — Stand, Aufidius, 
And trouble not the peace. 

Cor. O, that I had him, 

With six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe, 
To use my lawful sword ! 

Auf. Insolent villain ! 

All the Conspirators. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him ! 

[Aufidius and the Conspirators draw, and kill Corio- 
lanus, who falls : Aufidius stands on him. 

Lords. Hold, hold, hold, hold ! 

Auf. My noble masters, hear me speak. 

1 Lord. O Tullus, — 

2 Lord. Thou'st done a deed whereat valour will weep. 
j Lord. Tread not upon him. — Masters all, be quiet ; 

Put up your swords. 

Auf. My lords, when you shall know — as in this rage, 
Provoked by him, you cannot — the great danger 
Which this man's life did owe 8 you, you'll rejoice 
That he is thus cut off. Please it your Honours 
To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver 

6 His fame overspreads the world. 

7 Judicious here has the sense of judicial; the two being formerly con- 
vertible terms. 

8 To speak of owing you danger sounds odd, nor do I remember another 
instance of the word used in exactly the same way. The meaning clearly is, 
to have, to threaten, or he fraught with danger to you. Perhaps the phrase, 
still common, " He owes me a grudge," that is, he has a grudge against me, 
is of similar origin. 



I9O CORIOLANUS. 



ACT V. 



Myself your loyal servant, or endure 
Your heaviest censure. 

1 Lord. Bear from hence his body, 
And mourn you for him ; let him be regarded 

As the most noble corse that ever herald 
Did follow to his urn. 

2 Lord. His own impatience 
Takes from Aundius a great part of blame. 
Let's make the best of it. 

Auf. My rage is gone ; 

And I am struck with sorrow. — Take him up ; — 
Help, three o' the chiefest soldiers ; I'll be one. — 
Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully : 
Trail your steel pikes. — Though in this city he 
Hath widow'd and unchilded many a one, 
Which to this hour bewail the injury, 
Yet he shall have a noble memory. 9 — 
Assist. 

\_Exeunt, bearing the body of Coriolanus. 
A dead march sounded. 

9 Memory, again, for memorial or monument. See page 165, note 3. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act i., Scene i. 

Page 38. 1 Cit. Against him first. — In the original, this speed* 
has the prefix "All," just as have the preceding speeches to which 
" Citizens " is prefixed in the text. Malone thought it should be as- 
signed to j Citizen, and surely he was right. 

P. 38. 2 Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously. — The original pre- 
fixes "All" to this speech. Evidently wrong, as the second Citizen 
endeavours, all through this scene, to assuage the wrath of his fellows. 

P. 39. He did it to please his mother, and partly to be proud. — 
So Hanmer. The old text reads " and to be partly proud." Capell 
prints partly before "to please his mother." Staunton thinks it should 
be portly ; Lettsom, pertly, meaning openly, clearly. 

P. 39. I Cit. Our business is not unknown to the Senate ; &c. — 
In the original, this speech is given to the second Citizen, as are also 
the subsequent speeches of this scene which are here assigned to the 
first Citizen. This is clearly wrong, as it is quite at odds with the 
course of the preceding dialogue The second Citizen is a temperate 
defender of the hero. Capell made the correction. 

P. 40. Care for us ! True, indeed, they ne'er cared for us yet. — 
So the old copies. Several modern editions print "True, indeed! 
They ne'er cared for us yet." 

P. 40. But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture 

To stale't a little more. — The original has scale instead of 
stale. The forced attempts made to justify scale are, I think, a full 
condemnation of it. Corrected by Theobald. 



192 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 41. And, mutually participant, did minister, &c. — The original 
has "And mutually participate.'''' 

P. 44. He that wih give good words to ye will flatter 

Beneath abhorring. — The original has thee instead of ye. The 
old abbreviations of the two words were often confounded. Here the 
context imperatively requires ye. Corrected by Dyce. 

P. 44. And hew down oaks with rushes. Trust ye? Hang ye! 
— The original reads " Hang ye: trust ye?" The transposition was 
proposed by Coleridge, and is approved by Walker. 

P. 44. With every minute you do change your mind. — So Collier's 
second folio. The old text has " change a mind." 

P. 46. Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms, 
Of their own choice : one's Junius Brutus, one 
Sicinius Velutus, &c. — So Walker. The old text lacks one 
after Brutus. The insertion is, I think, fairly called for by both sense 
and metre. 

P. 46. The rabble should have first unroof 'd the city. — The origi- 
nal has unroo'st. Theobald's correction. 

P. 48. The present war devour him ! — The old text has Warres. 

Act i., Scene 2. 

P. 51. Let us alone to guard Corioli. — Here, and throughout the 
play, the original has Corioles, or Carioles. 

P. 51. If they set down before \y, for their remove 

Bring up your army. — The original has the instead of their, 
which was proposed by Johnson. 

Act i., Scene 3. 

P. 52. I see him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair. The original 
omits I. Supplied by Rowe. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 193 

P. 53. Than Hector 's forehead 'when it spit forth blood 

At Grecian swords, contemning. — Tell Valeria, &c. — The 
original reads " At Grecian sword. Contenning, tell Valeria " ; the 
second folio, "At Grecian swordes Contending : tell," &c. Collier's 
second folio has contemning. Lettsom proposed "As Grecian swords 
contemning." 

P. 54. Catch' d it again : and, whether his fall enraged him, or 
how 'twas, he did so set his teeth, &c. — So Hanmer. The original has 
or instead of and. 

Act i., Scene 4. 

P. 56. No, nor a man that fears you more than he ; 

That's lesser than a little. — Instead of more, the original has 
less, which directly contradicts the sense of the passage. Both Johnson 
and Capell proposed more. 

P. 57. You shames of Rome ! you herd of — Boils and plagues 

Plaster you o'er; &c. — The original, reads "you Heard of Byles 
and Plagues." The correction is Johnson's, and the reading aptly 
marks the speaker's explosive rage. Collier's second folio has " un- 
heard of Byles," &c. ; which Dyce seems to think very well of, though 
he does not adopt it. I am by no means sure that it ought not to be 
preferred. 

P. 57. If you' II stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives, 

As they us to our trenches. Follow me. — Instead of Follow me, 
the original has, simply, followes. The reading in the text is Lett- 
som's ; a very valuable correction. 

P. 58. Who, sensible, outdares his senseless sword, 

And, when it bows, stands up. — Thou art lost, Marcius. — In 
the first of these lines, the original reads "Who sensibly out-dares." 
In the second, it has stand' st instead of stands, and left instead of lost. 
The latter correction is Collier's. Thirlby changed sensibly to sensible. 

P. 58. Thou wast a soldier 

Even to Cato's wish. — The original has " to Calves wish." Cor- 
rected by Theobald. See foot-note 7. 



194 CORIOLANUS. 



Act i., Scene 5. 

P. 59. See here these movers that do prize their hours 

At a cracked drachma. — Pope and Johnson changed hours to 
honours. The former is ascertained to be the right reading, by refer- 
ring to the authority which the Poet followed : " The city being taken 
in this sort, the most part of the souldiers began incontinently to spoile, 
to cary away, and to looke up the bootie they had wonne. But Martius 
was marvellous angry with them, and cryed out on them, that it was 
no time now to looke after spoile, and runne stragling here and there 
to enrich themselves." — I must add that the original has Drachme. 
Collier, White, and Dyce print drachm ; Staunton dram ; I cannot tell 
why. Metre requires a dissyllable. 

P. 60. Now the fair goddess, Fortune, 

Fall deep in love with thee ; and her great charms 
Misguide th' opposers'' swords. — So Walker. The old text has 
" Misguide thy Opposers sjvords." 

Act i., Scene 6. 

P. 61. Ye Roman gods, 

Lead their successes as we wish our own, &c. — The original has 
The instead of Ye. Hanmer's correction. 

P. 62. More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue 

From every meaner man's. — The original has man instead of 
man's. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 63. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think so. 

Where is the enemy ? — So Lettsom. The original lacks so. 
Collier's second folio reads "think zV." 

P. 64. Go we along ; make you a sword of me. 

If these shows be not outward, &c. — -The original reads, "Oh 
me alone, make you a sword of me," &c. This is commonly printed 
" O me, alone ! make you a sword of me ? " &c. Dyce, however, prints 



CRITICAL NOTES. I95 

u O, me alone!" &c. No one seems able to make any sense out of 
the old text, however punctuated. Heath says, " This is undoubtedly 
nonsense. I conceive we should read ' Let me alone ; make you a 
sword of me'?" But I cannot make this reading cohere with the 
context. Singer prints " Come ! along ! make you a sword of me." 
The reading in the text is suggested by Mr. R. Whitelaw, in the 
"Rugby edition" of the play. It gives about the same meaning as 
Singer's, and is, I think, more in the Poet's manner. That meaning 
is, of course, " Let us proceed to the work ; use me as your sword " ; 
and, as they already have the speaker in their arms, the language is 
not strained. We have repeated instances of me and we confounded, 
and also of along misprinted alone. 

P. 64. A certain number, 

Though thanks to all, must I select : the rest 
Shall bear the business in some other fight. — The original reads 
"must I select from all : The rest," &c. The words from all are re- 
dundant in metre, and, I think, much worse than redundant in sense. 
Probably interpolated for the sake of the jingle. Hanmer omits them. 

P. 64. - Please you to march ; 

And I shall quickly draw out my command, &c. — The old text 
reads " And foure shall quickly draw." I cannot imagine — it seems 
that nobody can — what business four has there. Singer substitutes 
some, which is better than four indeed, but far from satisfactory. Lett- 
som proposes we, meaning the speaker and Cominius ; and he observes 
that "four may have been derived from the sixth line above." This is 
certainly better than some ; still I prefer 7", which was proposed by 
Capell. 

Act i., Scene 8. 

P. 66. Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor 

More than thy fame I envy. — The original reads " More than 
thy fame and envy." The construction commonly put upon the pas- 
sage is, " Not Afric owns a serpent that I more abhor and envy than I 
do thy fame " ; envy being interpreted in the old sense of hate. But 
why should Aufidius profess to abhor and hate the fame of Marcius ? 



196 CORIOLANUS. 

when the plain truth is, that he desires or covets his fame, and therefore 
envies him the possession of it. The theory of the change is, that the 
pronoun I was mistaken by the printer for the usual contraction of and. 
The correction is from Collier's second folio. 



Act i., Scene 9. 

P. 68. May these same instruments, which you profane, 

Never sound more ! Shall drums and trumpets, when 
/' the field, prove flatterers ? Let Courts and cities be 
Made all of false-faced soothing, where steel grows 
Soft as the parasite's silk : let them be made 
An overture for th' wars. — This is one of the most trouble- 
some passages in the very troublesome text of this play. In the second 
and third lines, the original reads " When drums and trumpets shall i' 
the field prove flatterers, let courts," &c. The transposition of when 
and shall, so as to make the clause interrogative, was proposed by 
Singer. I think it removes the worst of the difficulty. In the fourth 
line, the original has when instead of where ; an easy and common 
misprint. In the fifth line also, the original reads " let him be made," 
&c; where him can hardly be reconciled with any possible explana- 
tion of the passage. Every one experienced in proof-reading knows 
how apt him and them or 'em are to be misprinted for each other ; and 
in fact the originals of Shakespeare have divers instances of such mis- 
printing. As the text is here printed them refers to " drums and trum- 
pets." Dyce, following Collier's second folio, changes An overture to 
A coverture, understanding it to mean covering, that is armour. But 
I question whether coverture was ever used in that sense. Shakespeare 
has the word in two places, and in both it bears a sense very different 
from that ; as " couched in the woodbine coverture ," and " in night's 
coverture we may surprise and take him." Overture is introduction ot 
prelude. I add an exact transcript of the old text : 

May these same Instruments, which you prophane, 
Never sound more: when Drums and Trumpets shall 
I' th' field prove flatterers, let Courts and Cities be 
Made all of false-fac'd soothing: 
When Steele growes soft, as the Parasites Silke, 
Let him be made an Overture for th' Warres. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 197 

P. 69. Caius Marcius Coriolanus. — Bear 

TW addition nobly ever ! — Both here and in the next speech, 
the original has "Marcius Caius Coriolanus." 



Act i., Scene 10. 

P. 72. My valour, poisoned 

With only suffering stain by him, for him, 

Shall fly out of itself . — The original reads " my valors poison'd," 
&c. The misprinting of plurals and singulars for each other is one of 
the commonest. The correction is Pope's. 

P. 72. The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice, 

Embankments all of fury, &c. — The original has Embarque- 
ments. Hanmer changed this to Embankments, which Walker says " is 
the true reading." 

Act 11., Scene i. 

P. 75. Said to be something imperfect in favouring the thirst com- 
plaint. — The original reads "first complaint " ; in which there 
appears neither humour nor sense. Thirst is derived from Collier's 
second folio. There can be little hesitation in receiving it, as it 
makes both the sense and the humour perfect. Lettsom thinks it should 
be first complainer, and that the clause should come in after " fore- 
head of the morning." 

P. 75. /cannot say your Worships have delivered the matter well, 
&c. — The original reads U I can say" ; a palpable error. 

P. 75. Yet they lie deadly that tell you you have good faces. — The 
original lacks the second you; another palpable error. 

P. 75. What harm can your bisson conspetuities glean out of this 
character, &c. — The original has beesome, doubtless a misprint for 
bisson, which is an old word for blind, and which was formerly spelt in 
various ways. In a later scene we have, apparently, the same word 
misprinted bosome. See foot-note 8. 



198 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 77. The most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, 
&c. — The original has Emperickqutique, for which Collier's second 
folio substitutes empiric physic. See foot-note 13. 

P, 79. Where he hath won, 

With fame, a name to Caius Marcius ; these 

In honour follows Coriolanus. — Welcome, 

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus! — Here, again, the 
original transposes the names, Martius Caius, and also repeats them 
before Coriolanus in the next line. The first welcome is wanting in 
the old text. The insertion is Walker's. 

P. 81. From whom I have received not only greetings, 

But with them charge of honours. — So Theobald and Collier's 
second folio. The original has change instead of charge. 

P. 83. He cannot te?nperately transport his honours 

From where he should begin to th' end ; &c. — The original 
has "begin and end." I have tried in vain to make any sense out of 
this reading ; and the strained yet futile attempts which have been 
made at explaining it are to me strong argument of its being wrong ; 
for by the same methods almost any words may be made to yield 
almost any sense. Another reading has occurred to me, " ' Tween 
where he should begin and end." This would give the same sense, or 
nearly the same, as the reading in the text. And as the capitals F and 
T are commonly written, either might easily be mistaken for the other ; 
under which mistake the rest of the word would naturally be assimi- 
lated accordingly. — Since writing the above, I find that " begin to th' 
end " was proposed by Seymour. See note on " And for the gap," &c, 
Cymbeline, page 209. 

P. 83. That he zvill give them, make as little question 

As he is proud to do't. — So Reed, 1803. The original has 
" make I as little question " ; which is against both sense and metre ; 
make being clearly in the same construction as doubt not, fourth line 
above. Lettsom approves the omission. 

P. 84. Of no more sotil nor fitness for the world 

Than camels in the war. — So Hanmer. The original has 
"in their war." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I99 

P. 84. This, as you say, suggested 

At some time when his soaring insolence 

Shall touch the people, will be as fire 

To kindle their dry stubble. — The original has teach instead of 
touch, and " be his fire." The former correction is Hanmer's, the 
latter CapelPs. Pope reads " be the fire." 

Act 11., Scene 2. 

P. 85. If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he'd 
waved indifferently Hwixt, &c. — The original has " he waved." The 
slight change here made is Lettsom's. Of course the meaning is, " he 
would have waved." 

P. 86. Bonneted into their estimation and report, without any 
further deed to have them at all. — The old text reads " bon- 
neted, without any further deed, to have them at all into their estima- 
tion, and report." Pope altered have to heave, which has been 
generaly adopted, though it necessitates a forced and very questionable 
explanation of botmeted. The right construction is, I think, clearly 
that given in the text ; but it is, to say the least, not easy to get the 
sense of that construction from the old order of the words. Nor is the 
transposition which I have made a whit more free or bold than a great 
many others that are commonly thought needful, as indeed most of 
them are. See foot-note 2. 

P. 87. By Caius Marcius Coriolanus ; whom 

We meet here, both to thank, &c. — Here, again, the original 
transposes the names, Afartius Caius, and also has met instead of 
meet. 

P. 89. He had rather venture all his limbs for honour 

Than one on's ears to hear't. — The original has "Then on 
ones Eares." 

P. 89. When with his Amazonian chin he drove, &c. — The origi« 
nal has Shinne instead of chin. 



200 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 90. As waves before 

A vessel under sail, so men obeyed, 

And fell below his stem. — So the second folio ; the first has 
weeds instead of waves. Singer aptly remarks, that " a vessel stemming 
the waves is an image much more suitable to the prowess of Coriolanus 
than the displacing of weeds." Lettsom also prefers waves ; and ob- 
serves, that " the sense requires a circumstance that happens usually, 
not exceptionally, to ships under sail." 

Act 11., Scene 3. 

P. 96. You know the cause, sirs, of my standing here. — The origi- 
nal has Sir instead of sirs. As the speaker is addressing the " brace " 
of citizens who have just entered, sirs is clearly right. Probably mis- 
printed from having sir directly under it in the next line. Corrected 
by Rowe. 

P. 96. Ay, not mine own desire. — So the third folio. The earlier 
editions have but and no instead of not. 

P. 98. Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here, &c. — The 
original has Woolvish toizgue ; the second folio, gowne instead of 
tongue, which is doubtless a misprint for toge. For woolvish Collier's 
second folio substitutes woolless, which Dyce adopts. As the toga was 
always made of wool, I doubt whether the Poet would have called it 
woolless. See foot-note 9. 

P. 98. Battles thrice six 

Pve seen, and heard of ; for your voices have 
Done many things; &c. — The words "and heard of" seem, 
to say the least, rather odd and out of place. Perhaps it should be 
" and shared of '" ; which is a modest equivalent for "been a part of," 
and is good English for " had a share of" : therewithal it accords with 
what Cominius says in the preceding scene ; where, after describing 
the hero's first exploit, he continues, " And in the brunt of seventeen 
battles since," &c. Farmer proposed to read " battles thrice six I've 
seen, and you have heard of." See, however, foot-note n. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 201 

P. 99. May T, then, change these garments ? — So Hamner. The 
original lacks then. 

P. 100. To my poor unworthy notion, 

He mocked us when he begged our voices. — So Walker. The 
old text has notice instead of notion. Here, as in divers other places, 
notion is equivalent to understanding ox judgment. 

P. 102. Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking 

As they are kept to do so. — Instead of they are, the original has 
therefore, which makes an ugly tautology with to do so. 

P. 102. Took from you 

The apprehension of his present portance, 
Which, gibing most zmgravely, he did fashion 
After th* inveterate hate he bears you. — The original reads 
" Which most gibingly, ungravely," &c. ; a breach of metrical order 
quite unusual with the Poet. The reading in the text was proposed by 
Lettsom. White transfers Which to the end of the preceding line, and 
thus disorders the metre of that line. 

P. 103. Of the same House Publius and Quintus were, 

That our best water brought by conduits hither ; 

And Censorinus, who was nobly named so, 

Twice being chosen censor by the people, 

Was his great ancestor. — Instead of the third and fourth of 
these lines, the original has merely "And Nobly nam'd so, twice being 
Censor." So that, in effect, a whole line has to be supplied in order 
to make any sense of the passage. The words supplied are in accord- 
ance with the narration in Plutarch, from whence this passage is taken : 
" The house of the Martians at Rome was of the number of the patri- 
cians, out of which hath sprong many noble personages, whereof 
Ancus Martius was one, King Numaes daughter's sonne, who was 
king of Rome after Tullus Hostilius. Of the same house were Publius 
and Quintus, who brought to Rome their best water they had by con- 
duits. Censorinus came of that familie, that was so surnamed because 
the people had chosen him censor twice." Publius and Quintus and 
Censorinus were not the ancestors of Coriolanus, but his descendants. 
Caius Marcius Rutilius did not obtain the name of Censorinus till the 



202 CORIOLANUS. 

year of Rome 487; and the Marcian waters were not brought to the 
city by aqueducts till near 350 years after the death of Coriolanus. 
Shakespeare confounded the ancestors and posterity of Coriolanus 
together. 

Act hi., Scene i. 

P. 106. Hath he not pass 1 d the nobles and the commons? — So Rowe. 
The original has " the Noble and the Common." The second folio 
changes Common to Commons, but leaves Noble unchanged. Evi- 
dently both should be changed or neither. 

P. 109. O good, but most unwise patricians ! why, 

You grave, but reckless Senators, have you thus 

Given Hydra here to choose an officer, 

That with his peremptory shall, being but 

The horn and noise 0' the monster, &c. — In the first of these 
lines, the original has "O God! but most unwise Patricians: " &c. We 
have other clear instances of God misprinted for good. — In the third 
line, Dyce substitutes heart for here ; very infelicitously, as I cannot 
but think. For the patricians have not given the people the heart, 
that is, the disposition or spirit, to choose Tribunes ; the people had 
that before ; but they have granted to them the legal power or right ; 
have given their consent to such a law. Coriolanus regards the com- 
mon people everywhere as a many-headed monster, like the Hydra ; 
and what he is now complaining of is, that here, in Rome, this monster 
is allowed to choose a special officer who can do such and such things. 
As for the passages quoted by Dyce in support of his change, I can 
but say that they seem to me quite irrelevant. See foot-note 12. — In 
the fifth line, again, the old text has monsters instead of monster. As 
the word evidently refers to Hydra a little before, there can be no 
doubt, I think, that it should be in the singular. Corrected by Capell, 
and in Collier's second folio. 

P. no. If 'they have power, 

Let them have cushions by you ; if none, revoke 
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned, 
Be not as common fools ; if you are not, 
Then vail your ignorance. You are plebeians, &c. — In the 



CRITICAL NOTES. 2C«3 

first of these lines, the original has he ins Lead of they, and also the Ro- 
man type clauses in the second and fifth lines transposed. I adopt 
Hanmer's reading as the simplest and most satisfactory way of setting 
both the logic and the language in order. Collier's second folio sub- 
stitutes impotence for ignorance, and thus gets a fitting antithesis to 
power ; but does nothing towards redressing the other difficulties of 
the passage. My own experience in proof-reading has taught me how 
apt lines and parts of lines are to get shuffled out of place in such 
cases. — In the second line, again, the original reads " awake your 
dangerous lenity"; which, it seems to me, cannot possibly be made to 
yield any consistent sense. Revoke is from Collier's second folio, which 
also substitutes bounty for lenity. The latter I can by no means accept ; 
for Coriolanus is here speaking, not against the Senate's bounty in 
letting the people have corn gratis, but against their indulgent temper, 
or lenity, in letting them have Tribunes as their own special magistrates. 

P. in. Th? accusation 

Which they have often made against the Senate, 

All cause unborn, could never be the motive 

Of our so frank donation. Well, what then ? 

How shall this bisson multitude digest 

The Senate's courtesy ? — In the third of these lines, the origi- 
nal has Native instead of motive, which was proposed by Heath. In 
the fifth line, also, the old text has Bosome-multiplied instead of bisson 
multitude, which is from Collier's second folio. It is indeed possible 
that bosom multiplied may have been intended as an equivalent for 
multitudinous bosom, which is a right Shakespearian expression. Still 
multiplied is but a flat and feeble substitute for multitudinous. 

P. 112. Where one part does disdain with cause, the other 

Insult without all reason. — The original has Whereon instead 
of Where one. Rowe's correction. 

P. 112. To jump a body with a dangerous physic 

Thafs sure of death without it. — Much question has been made 
of jump in this passage. Pope substituted vamp, which has been 
adopted by some editors. Singer reads imp, which is a term in fal- 
conry, signifying to graft or insert feathers into the damaged wing of a 



204 CORIOLANUS. 

hawk; and so running into a secondary meaning of to repair or re- 
store by artificial means. To my surprise, Dyce adopts imp, and speaks 
of jump as a "rank corruption." Staunton is confident we ought to 
read purge ; and, surely, this is much better than either vamp or imp. 
But I am quite satisfied with jump, which was often used in the sense 
of to risk or hazard. The word occurs as a verb with that sense in the 
well-known speech of Macbeth, " We'd jump the life to come." Like- 
wise as a substantive in Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 8 : " Our fortune 
lies upon this jump." The same use of the word is found in Hol- 
land's Pliny : " If we looke for good successe in our cure by ministring 
ellebore, &c, for certainly it putteth the patient to a jumpe or greate 
hazard." Singer says oijump that " nothing can be made of it." But, 
as explained by the above quotations, to jump a body is the very thing 
that would needs be done by using dangerous physic ; nor is any thing 
more natural or more common than to use such physic in cases where 
the patient is " sure of death without it." In other words, the sense 
of risk agrees much better with the context here, than that of mend. 

P. 114. Sen. ^ 

Pat. > Weapons, weapons, weapons ! — 
&c. J 
Tribunes ! — Patricians ! — Citizens ! — What, ho ! — 
Sicinius ! — Brutus ! — Coriolanus ! — Citizens ! — 
Peace, peace, peace ! — Stay, hold, peace ! — To this speech 
the original prefixes merely " 2 Sen." But it was clearly meant as a 
confused utterance of the assembled crowd, Senators, patricians, 
Tribunes, and others sharing in it. The last line of the speech has 
"All" prefixed to it in the old text ; but it is evidently a part of the 
confused utterance which runs through the preceding lines : I there- 
fore concur with the Cambridge Editors and Dyce in throwing out the 
prefix. 

P. 114. You, tribunes, 

Speak to the people ; — Coriolanus, patience ; — 
Speak, good Sicinius. — The first Speak, which is plainly nec- 
essary to the sense, is wanting in the original. The insertion is Tyr- 
whitt's. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 205 

P. 115. Cor. That is the way to lay the city flat ; &c. — So Pope. 
The original prefixes " Com." to this speech : but the following speech 
is conclusive that this rightly belongs to Coriolanus. 

P. 115. Be that you seem, truly your country 's friends, &c. — As 
this speech is certainly addressed to both the Tribunes, there can be no 
doubt that we ought to read friends, and not friend, as it is in the orig- 
inal. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 116. Help, help Marcius, help, 

You that be noble. — So Hanmer, Capell, and Walker. The 
original omits the second help. 

P. 116. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away! — Instead of 
your, the original has our, which is palpably wrong. Rowe's correction. 

P. 116. Cor. Stand fast ; 

We have as many friends as enemies. — Here, again, the origi- 
nal prefixes " Com." Warburton clearly is right in saying that " this 
speech certainly should be given to Coriolanus ; for all his friends per- 
suade him to retire." 

P. 116. Com. Come, sir, along with us. 

Cor. / would they were barbarians, as they are, 
Though iit Rome littered; not Romans, as they are not, 
Though calved 2' the porch <?' the Capitol, — 

Men. Begone; 

Put not your worthy rage into your tongue, &c. — So Tyrwhitt 
and Collier's second folio. The original runs the two latter speeches 
into one, and assigns the whole to Menenius. To the first speech, also, 
the original prefixes " CorioP Corrected in the second folio. 

P. 118. To eject hi??i hence 

Were but our danger ; and to keep him here 
Our certain death. — The original reads " Were but one dan- 
ger." An obvious error, corrected by Theobald. 

P. 119. The service of the foot, 

Being once gangrened, is not then respected 
For what it was before. — Some would assign this speech to 



206 CORIOLANUS. 

Sicinius ; Lettsom would make it a part of Brutus' preceding speech, 
and then assign the next speech to Sicinius ; but I can hardly think 
the Poet would have put into the mouth of either Tribune an argument 
so palpably unjust. See foot-note 31. 

P. 120. I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him 
Where he shall answer, by a lawful form, — 
In peace, — to's utmost peril. — The original adds the words in 
peace to the first of these lines, — " bring him in peace " ; a repetition 
at odds alike with sense and metre. 



Act hi., Scene 2. 

P. 122. Would you have me 

False to my nature ? Rather say, I play 

Truly the man I am. — So Hanmer. The original lacks Truly, 
which makes a fitting antithesis to False in the preceding line. Dr. 
Badham would read 

False to my nature? Rather say you're glad 
I play the man I am. 

P. 122. Lesser had been 

The thwartings of your disposition, if 

You had not showed them how you were disposed, &c. — The 
original reads "The things of your dispositions." Theobald substituted 
thwartings for things. Rowe printed " The things that thwart," &c. 
Disposition is Hanmer's reading. 

P. 122. I have a heart as tickle-apt as yours, 
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 
To better vantage. — The original reads " a heart as little apt," 
out of which it seems hardly possible to gather any fitting sense. For 
the present reading I am indebted to Mr. P. A. Daniel, of London. It 
seems to me to remove fairly the difficulty of the passage. See foot- 
note 5, especially the quotation from Chapman. Collier's second folio 
endeavours in vain to mend the matter by interpolating a whole line 
thus: 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20/ 

I have a heart as little apt as yours, 

To brook control without the use of anger, 

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger, &c. 

P. 123. Before he should thus stoop to th? herd, &c. — So Theobald 
The original has heart instead of herd. 

P. 124. Not by your own instruction, 

Nor by the matter which your own heart prompts you. 
But with such words that are but roted in 
Your tongue, thought's bastards, and but syllables 
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth. — So Dr. Badham, in 
Cambridge Essays, 1856. The original lacks own in the second line, 
and in the third reads " though but Bastards, and Syllables." This 
is manifestly neither metre nor logic ; and I think the correction sets 
the line in excellent order in both these respects. Of course " thought's 
bastards " means the spurious, not the legitimate offspring of the mind. 

— In the second line, the original has " that are but roated in." It may 
be something doubtful what roated was meant for ; and some editors 
change it to rooted ; but I think roted gives a more congruent sense, 
and is equally good English. Of course it means spoken by rote. — In 
the last line, again, Johnson proposed, and Capell printed, alliance 
instead of allowance. I was once led to favour alliance, but am now 
thoroughly satisfied that allowance is right. See foot-note 7. 

P. 125. Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand ; 

And — thus far having stretched it, waving thy head, 

Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, 

Bow, humble as the ripest mulberry 

That will not hold the handling, — say to them, &c. — In the 
fourth of these lines, the original has Now instead of Bow, thus leaving 
Which without any syntactical connection. The correction is Mason's. 

— In the last line, again, the original has " or say," against both sense 
and metre. Corrected by Hanmer, who is followed by White and Dyce. 

P. 125. This but done, 

Even as she speaks it, why, their hearts were yours. — So Capell 
and Ritson. The original lacks it. 



208 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 126. Must I go show them my unbar bed sconce ? 

Must I with my base tongue give to i?iy heart 

A lie that it must bear? — The original reads "to my noble 
heart"; where noble is redundant in metre, and worse than redundant 
in sense : it fairly contradicts the hero's proper tone. An interpolation, 
I have no doubt. 

P. 127. Into a pipe 

Small as an eunuch's, or the virgin voice 

That babies lulls asleep. — The original has Eunuch and lull. 
Hardly worth noting, perhaps. 

P. 128. Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me, 

But owest thy pride thyself. — So Collier's second folio. The 
original has owe. 

Act hi., Scene 3. 

P. 129. I have ; 'tis ready here. — The word here is not in the origi- 
nal, but seems fairly warranted on grounds both of metre and of sense. 
Supplied by Pope. 

P. 130. He hath been used 

Ever to conquer, and to have his word 

Of contradiction. — So Rowe. Instead of word, the original 
has xuorth, which seems to me absolutely meaningless here. On the 
other hand, word seems rather tame for the occasion. Collier's second 
folio has mouth, which is dreadful. Lettsom suggests will, which is far 
from happy, me judice. Becket conjectures wroth ; and thereupon 
Mr. P. A. Daniel proposes a reading which, though something bold, 
seems to me well worth considering, " and to heat his wrath On con- 
tradiction." 

P. 130. Throng our large temples with the shows of peace. — The 
original has Through instead of Throng. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 131. Do not take 

His rougher accents for malicious sounds. — The original has 
Actions for accents. Corrected by Theobald. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 2C>9 

P. 133. Nor check my courage for what they can give. — For courage 
Collier's second folio substitutes carriage, which seems to me not un- 
likely to be the true reading. 

P. 133. For that he has, 

As much as in him lies, from time to time, 

Inveigh'd against the people, seeking means 

To pluck away their power ; &c. — The original has "Envied 
against." It appears that inveigh'd was sometimes spelt invaied, which 
might easily be mistaken for envied. Dr. Badham observes that " to 
envy against a person or thing is foreign to the language, and there 
was nothing to induce Shakespeare to adopt such a construction." He 
also quotes from Lyly's Euphites a passage where the author plays 
upon the resemblance of the two words : " Although I have been bolde 
to invay against many, yet I am not so brutish as to envy them all." 
The reading in the text was proposed by Becket. 

P. 133. I have been Consul, and can show for Rome 

Her enemies' 1 marks upon me. — The original has frotn instead 
of for. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 1 34. Making but reservation of yourselves. — Capell and Collier's 
second folio substitute not for but ; and Dyce follows them. The 
change appears to me something worse than unnecessary, since it 
would imply that the people banished themselves, after having banished 
their defenders. See foot-note 9. 

P. 135. Despising, then, 

For you, the city, thus I turn my back. — The original lacks 
the n. Some such word is clearly needed both for logic and metre. In- 
serted by Pope. 

P. 135. Come, come, lefs see him out at gates ; come, come ; — 

The gods preserve our noble tribunes ! — come. — The last come 
in the first of these lines is wanting in the original. 

Act iv., Scene i. 

P. 136. You were used 

To say extremity was the trier of spirits. — So the second folio. 
The first has " Extreamities was," &c. 



2IO CORIOLANUS. 

P. 136. Fortune's blows 

When most struck home, being gentle -minded craves 
A noble cunning. — So Collier's second folio. The original has 
" being gentle wounded" upon which editors have exercised their wits 
somewhat variously in correction. Pope reads " being gently warded" 
Hanmer, " being greatly warded." See foot-note 1. 

P. 137. My fair son, 

Whither wilt thou go ? Take good Cominius, &c. — The 
original has " My first son," with which all are dissatisfied, I believe, as 
indeed they may well be. Heath proposed " My fierce son," and Han- 
mer printed " First, my son," neither of which is any improvement. 
Shakespeare uses fair in a great variety of senses, among which those 
of brave, noble, high-minded are repeatedly included. 



Act iv., Scene 2. 

P. 139. 0,ye're well met : the hoarded plagues o" 1 the gods 

Requite your loves ! — The original has plague instead of plagues. 
The correction was proposed by Lettsom, and is right, surely. See 
foot-note 1. 

P. 139. More noble blows than ever thou wise words ; 

And for Rome 's good. — Lettsom would read " thou vile words "; 
and he observes that "at any rate wise is preposterous." The word 
does not indeed seem just right ; but I cannot see that vile does much 
better. I suspect we ought to read "mere words." 

P. 139. Vol. What then! 

He^d make an end of thy posterity, 
Bastards and all. Good man, the wounds that he 
Does bear for Rome ! — So Hanmer. The original gives the 
first part of the speech, all before Good, to Virgilia. It seems quite out 
of keeping with her character ; while the whole is in perfect keeping 
with that of Volumnia. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 211 



Act iv., Scene 3. 

P. 141. You had more beard when I last saw you ; but your favour 
is well appear'd by your tongue. — This use of appeared seems rather 
strange to us. Steevens conjectured approved, which is substituted in 
Collier's second folio ; and so Dyce prints. Various other substitutes 
have been adopted or proposed ; the most noteworthy of which is 
appayed, given by Singer on the ground of its being an old word for 
" satis/led, contented" ! ! It is evident that the authors of these changes 
did not understand the Poet's use of to appear. Mr. Joseph Crosby 
has satisfied me in the matter by pointing out a good many instances 
where that word is clearly used as a transitive verb, meaning to show, 
to manifest, to make apparent, to present, &c. So in TrOilus and 
Cressida, iii. 3 : " Appear it to your mind that, through the sight I bear 
in things to come." See, also, page 98, note 10, and Cymbeline, page 
138, note 8. 

Act iv., Scene 4. 

P. 143. Whose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, 

Are still together, &c. — So Collier's second folio, and rightly, 
beyond all question. The original has Houres instead of house. 

P. 144. My birth-place hate 7", and my love's upon 

This enemy's town. — The original reads " My Birth-place 
have I." Corrected by Capell. The original also has "This Enemie 
Towne." As the word was probably written Enemies, the misprint was 
easy. The correction was made in the fourth folio, and is fully justified 
by the words just after, " if he slay me." 

Act iv., Scene 5. 

P. 144. Has the porter no eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to 
such companions ? — The original has his instead of no ; doubtless an 
accidental repetition from the words immediately following. 

P. 146. If, Tullus, 

Not yet thoti knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not 
Think me the man I am, necessity 



212 CORIOLANUS. 

Commands me name myself. — The original reads " thinke me 
for the man," &c. Capell struck out for ; and Lettsom is surely right 
in saying that the expression think for is not English. 

P. 148. If Jupiter 

Should fr o?n out yonder cloud speak divine things, 
And say 'Tis true, I'd not believe him more 
Than thee, all-noble Mar cius. — The original has the second of 
these lines thus: " Should from yond clowd speake divine things." It 
is hardly credible that the Poet should here have written such a muti- 
lated verse. Pope printed " Should from yon cloud speak to me things 
divine." The reading in the text was proposed by Dyce. — In the third 
line, also, the old text has them instead of him, which is Walker's cor- 
rection. 

P. 148. And scarr'd the Moon with splinters. — The original prints 
scarred, which Collier's second folio alters to scared. As the two words 
scarr'd and scared were often spelt alike, it is something doubtful 
which of them the Poet intended here. See foot-note 8. 

P. 149. Had zve no quarrel else to Rome, but that 

Thou art thence banish 'd, &c. — So the third folio. The earlier 
editions read " Had we no other quarrell else." 

P. 149. To fright them, ere destroy. But come thou in : 

let me commend thee first, &c. — The original reads "But 
come in." As there ought, evidently, to be no halting in the metre 
here, the usual reading has been " But come, come in." Lettsom pro- 
posed " But nozv come in." It seems to me that thott is the simplest 
way of completing the verse. 

P. 150. But a greater soldier than he you wot on. — The original 
has "you wot one.'"' Dyce's correction. 

P. 151. An he had been cannibally given, he might have broil'd and 
eaten him too. — The original has boyld instead of broil'd. Corrected 
by Pope. 

P. 152. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, &c. — Capell reads 
" This peace is good for nothing," &c. Rightly, I suspect. Some have 
printed " is worth nothing." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 213 

P. 152. Ifs sprightly, waking, audible, and full of vent. — The 
original has walking, instead of waking. Pope's correction. 

P. 152. Peace is a very apoplexy, a lethargy ; mute, deaf, sleepy, 
insensible ; &c. — So Walker. The old text lacks a before lethargy, 
and has muWd instead of mute. The common explanation of muWd\ 
is " softened and dispirited, as wine is when burnt and sweetened." But 
what has that sense to do along with deaf? The third folio has sleepy, 
the older text being sleepe. 

Act iv., Scene 6. 

P. 153. We hear not ofhi?7i, neither need we fear him ; 
His remedies are tame ; the present peace 
And quietness of the people, which before 
Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends 
Blush that the world goes well ; &c. — Here I am induced, by 

clear reasons both of logic and of metre, to adopt the reading of Han- 

mer. In the original the passage is printed thus : 

We heare not of him, neither need we fear him, 

His remedies are tame, the present peace, 

And quietnesse of the people, which before 

Were in wilde hurry. Heere do we make his Friends 

Blush, that the world goes well. 

Some change is evidently required in order to make any sense at all of 
the passage : and Theobald's change, which some adopt, "His remedies 
are tame z' the present peace," &c, saves neither the metre nor the 
logic. In the fourth line, we is palpably redundant in verse and para- 
logical in sense ; the speaker's drift being, not that we, the Tribunes, 
but that the continued peace and quietness of the people, make the 
patricians ashamed of having predicted popular commotions as the 
consequence of the hero's banishment. 

P. 153. Bru. Hail, sir! 

Men. Hail to you both ! 

Sic. Your Coriolanus, sir, is not much miss'd 
But with his friends. — The words, Hail, sir ! together with 
the prefix " Bru.", are wanting in the original, doubtless by accidental 



214 CORIOLANUS. 

omission, as both the metre and the reply of Menenius require them. 
Supplied by Capell. — In the speech of Sicinius, also, sir, wanting in 
the old text, was inserted by Capell. 

P. 154. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees, 

Are bound to pray for both you. — The original reads "to pray 
for you both" 

P. 155. And affecting one sole throne, 

Without assistance. 

Men. Nay, I think not so. — The original lacks 

Nay, thus leaving a gap in the verse, which Walker thought it so im- 
portant to have filled, that he proposed to read assistancy. Pope inserted 
Nay. 

P. 155. We should by this, to all our lamentation, 

If he had gone forth Consul, so have found it. — The original 
reads "found it so" ; thus giving us the construction, " should found 
it so," which is not English, and, I think, never was. 

P. 156. The nobles in great earnestness are going 
All to the Senate-house : some news is come 
That turns their countenances. — The original has comming 
instead of come ; doubtless an accidental repetition from the ending of 
the line before. Rowe's correction. 

P. 156. He and Aufidius can no more atone 

Than violentest contrarieties. — So Hanmer. The original has 
Contrariety. 

P. 158. Are mocked for valiant ignorance. — I suspect we ought to 
read, with Hanmer, " Are only mock'd." 

Act iv., Scene 7. 

P. 163. So our virtues 

Lie in th' interpretation of the time. — So the second folio. 
The original has " Vertue Lie." Collier's second folio substitutes Live 



CRITICAL NOTES. 215 

for Lie. Mr. A. E. Brae is for reading " So doth virtue Lie " ; and I 
am apt to think that the right text. 

P. 163. And power, unto itself most cdmmendable, 
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair, 

T' extol what it hath done. — This passage has been a prodigious 
puzzle to the editors, most of whom have thought it badly corrupted. 
Various changes have been made or proposed, some in evident, but 
more in chair ; such as cheer, in Collier's second folio ; hair, by Singer; 
claim, by Leo ; care, by Mitford ; and tear, by myself. White has 
conjectured the true reading to be " Hath not a tongue so eloquent as 
a chair." I am now thoroughly satisfied that the old text is right ; or 
that, if any change is wanted, it should be " Hath ne'er a tomb." And 
I am indebted for this, in the first instance, to Mr. Joseph Crosby ; 
though I since find that Staunton and Mr. R. Whitelaw have given 
substantially the same solution of the difficulty. The changes made 
and proposed have all proceeded upon the supposal that the construc- 
tion is, "Hath not a tomb to extol"; whereas the construction is, "a 
chair to extol," that is, "a chair that extols." With this key to the 
meaning, the old text is readily seen to be right. See foot-notes 7 and 8. 

P. 164. Rights by rights fotder, strengths by strengths, do fail. — Here, 
again, the text has been generally held corrupt, and divers changes 
have been made or proposed ; such as, " Right's by right fouled," 
"Rights by right failed," "Rights by rights foul are," "Rights by 
rights founder? " Rights by rights suffer," " Rights by rights faWd 
are" and " Rights by rights falter T Dyce observes, " That a verb 
lies concealed under the corruption fouler is indubitable." But this is 
now far from being indubitable to me : I believe the old text to be 
right. See foot-note 10. 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 165. A pair of tribunes that have wrecked fair Rome 

To make coals cheap, — A noble memory ! — The original reads 
"have wrack" 1 d for Rome." Hanmer changed this to "have sacked 
fair Rome." Others have turned wrack'd into rack'd. The reading 



2l6 CORIOLANUS. 

in the text was proposed by Mr. W. W. Williams in The Parthenon 
for May 3, 1862 ; with the observation, "We meet elsewhere in Shake- 
speare with ' fair Athens,' ' fair Milan,' and ' fair Verona' : and why not 
fair Rome, — that ' urbs pulcherrima ' ? " 

P. 165. I minded him how royal Hwas to pardon 

When it was least expected : he replied, 

It was a rare petition of a State 

To one whom they had punish 'd. — In the second of these lines, 
the original has lesse instead of least ; also, in the third, bare instead 
of rare. The latter correction was proposed by Mr. W. W. Williams 
in The Parthenon, May 3, 1862 ; who quotes from i. I : "And a peti- 
tion granted them, a strange one." The meaning of rare in this 
instance is strange or extraordinary. Singer thinks we should read 
"a base petition." The correction of lesse to least is Pope's. 

P. 165. He could not stay to pick the?n in a pile 
Of noisome musty chaff : he said "'twas folly, 
For one poor grain or two, to leave't unburnt, 
And still to nose th? offence. — The old text reads "to leave 
unburnt." The slight addition, V, is proposed by Mr. P. A. Daniel, 
who fitly observes, " you may ' nose ' an offence ; but can only burn 
that which produces it." Of course " leave V unburnt" refers to the 
pile of chaff. 

P. 166. Pray you now, go to him. So Dyce. The original lacks 
now. The insertion, besides being wanted for the metre, is sustained 
from hi. 2 : " I pr'ythee now, my son, go to them," &c. 

P. 166. Well, and say that Marcius 

Return me, as Cominus is returned, 
Unheard ; what then? or not unheard, but as 
A discontented friend, grief shot with his 
Unkindness ? 

Sic. Say't be so, yet your good will 

Must have that thanks from Rome, &c. — The original has this 
passage badly mutilated and disordered : the words or not unheard are 
there wanting altogether ; and the words Say't be so are made to close 



CRITICAL NOTES. 217 

the preceding speech. Both Hanmer and Capell tried their hands at 
amendment, but without much success. Dr. Badham does better ; 
whose reading I have adopted. 

P. 167. Speed how it will, you shall ere long have knowledge 

Of my success. — So Heath and Collier's second folio. The 
original has / instead of you ; doubtless an accidental repetition from 
the preceding line. The old reading comes pretty near being absurd ; 
as Menenius could not well remain ignorant of his own success. 

P. 167. What he would do, 

He sent in writing after me, what he would not ; 
Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions. — This passage 
is very troublesome : as commonly pointed, it is quite unintelligible, if 
not unmeaning. Very likely it is corrupt ; but, if so, it is not easy to 
fix upon the precise point where. Staunton proposes to read "Bound 
with an oath to yield to no conditions." Leo says, " Professor Solly 
suggested to me, as a new reading, hold for yield." I more than sus- 
pect this latter to be the true reading. See foot-note 9. 

P. 167. So that all hope is vain, 

Unless in's noble mother and his wife ; 

Who, as I hear,, mean to solicit him, &c. — The original reads 
" Unless his Noble Mother," &c. The reading in the text was sug- 
gested to Steevens. Of course unless is here equivalent to except ; and 
such contractions as in's for in his are frequent in the Poet's later 
plays. 

Act v., Scene 2. 

P- 168. I have been 

The book of his good acts, whence men have read 
His fame unparalleled, haply amplified ; 

For I have ever amplified my friends, &c. — Instead of the 
second amplified, the original has verified, which probably crept in 
from verity in the next line. Hanmer and Collier's second folio sub- 
stitute magnified. Lettsom asks, " Why not repeat amplified?'''' Surely 
it is much better so. 



2l8 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 169. Think to front his revenges with the easy groans of old. 
women, &c. — For easy Collier's second folio substitutes queasy, and 
Staunton proposes wheezy. But easy may well bear a sense not unfitting, 
— slight, cheap, not worth minding. 

P. 1 70. Guess, but by my entertainment with him, if thou stand 'st 
not V the state of hanging, &c. — So Malone. The word by, necessary 
to the sense, is wanting in the original. 

P. 170. I have been blown out of owe gates with sighs. — So the fourth 
folio. The earlier editions have your instead of our. 

Act v., Scene 3. 

P. 1 74. You gods ! I prate, 

And the most noble mother of the world 

Leave unsaluted. — So Theobald. The original has pray instead 
of prate. 

P. 1 74. Then let the pebbles on the angry beach 

Fillip the stars ; &c. — The original reads " the hungry beach," 
which has been variously explained as " the sterile, unprolific beach," 
and as " the beach hungry or eager for shipwrecks, littus avarum." 
So that, as an epithet of beach, taken by itself, hungry may well pass ; 
but that sense has no coherence with the context here. Malone con- 
jectured angry. 

P. 175. The things I have forsworn to grant may never 

Be held by you denials. — The original has thing. The word 
denials shows that it should be things. 

P. 176. Yet we HI ask ; 

That, if we fail in our request, the blame 

May hang upon your hardness. — The original reads " if we 
fail in your request"; your having doubtless been accidentally repeated 
from the line below. Rowe's correction. 

P. 177. Thou shalt no sooner 

March to assault thy country than to tread — 
Trust toH thou shalt not — on thy mother's womb, 



CRITICAL NOTES. 2 1 9 

That brought thee to this world. 

Vir. Ay, and on mine, 

That brought you forth this boy, &c. — The original has merely 
" I, and mine." Capell inserted on. That the omission was accidental, 
who can doubt ? 

P. 177. 'A shall not tread on ?ne : 

I' II run away till I am bigger, then I'll fight. — The old text 
reads "till I am bigger, but then He fight." Here but manifestly spoils 
the metre without helping the sense. 

P. 178. Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour. — The original 
has five instead of fine. Corrected by Johnson. 

P. 178. And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt, &c. — The origi- 
nal has change instead of charge. The same misprint has occurred 
before in this play. See note on " From whom I have received not 
only greetings," &c, page 198. 

P. 1 79. Down, ladies ; let us shame him with our knees. — So the 
second folio. The first reads " let us shame him with him our knees." 
Not worth noting, perhap 

P. 179. This fellow had a Volscian to his mother ; 

His wife is in Corioli, and this child 

Like him by chance. — The original has " and his child." The 
correction is Theobald's, who notes as follows : " Volumnia would hint 
that Coriolanus by his stern behaviour had lost all family regards, and 
did not remember that he had any child. ' I am not his mother,' says 
she ; ' his wife is in Corioli ; and this child, 'whom we bring with us, 
is not his child, but only bears his resemblance by chance.' " 

P. 179- Now, good Aufidius, 

Were you in my stead, say, would you have heard 
A mother less ? — So Pope. The original lacks say, thus leaving 
a gap in the verse where it is plain there ought to be none. 



220 CORIOLANUS. 

P. 1 80. Out of that I'll work 

Myself a firmer fortune. — So Collier's second folio. The 
original has "a former Fortune." 

P. 180. We will but drink together ; and you shall bear 

A better witness back than words, &c. — The original reads " But 
we will drink," &c. This naturally implies that the speaker purposes 
to join the ladies in a drink of wine. White observes, as he well may, 
" I cannot but believe that drink, addressed to Volumnia and Virgilia, 
is a corruption." See foot-note 12. 



Act v., Scene 4. 

P. 182. Art certain this is true ? 

2 Mess. Ay, sir, most certain, — 

As certain as I know the Sun is fire : &c. — I here adopt, with- 
out any misgiving, the reading and arrangement proposed by Lettsom. 
The original gives the passage thus : 

Art thou certaine this is true ? Is't most certaine. 
Mess. As certaine as I know the Sun is fire. 

In the first line, Pope omitted thou; and modern editions set an (?) 
after "most certain." Referring to the phrases, "Art thou certain ?" 
and " Is it certain ? " Lettsom remarks as follows : " Shakespeare could 
scarcely have jumbled the phrases together so awkwardly as he appears 
from the editions to have done. Is't (as the old copies print it) is a 
misprint for I sir, that is, Ay, sir, and here the Messenger begins his 
answer to Sicinius." This is said in one of his notes on Walker, Shake- 
speare's Versification, page 285. Afterwards, in a letter to Dyce, he 
adds the following : " It is not at all likely, or rather it is quite im- 
possible, that a person would begin with ' Art THOU certain this is 
true ? ' and then go on, ' is it most certain ? ' He would say, ' art 
thou most certain ? ' " 

Act v., Scene 6. 

P. 183. " Scene VI. — Corioli." — This scene, the place of which is 
not told in the old copies, used to be marked at " Anlium," till Singer 
substituted " Corioli." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 221 

P. 184. He bow 'd his nature, never known before 

But to be rough, unswayable, and fierce. — So Hanmer and 
Collier's second folio. The original has free instead of fierce. 

P. 185. Holp to reap the fame 

Which he did end all his. — This has commonly been thought 
corrupt, and various changes have been made or proposed. Rowe sub- 
stituted make for end. Some would substitute ear for reap, and reap 
for end; others would substitute bind for end. But the old text has 
been amply vindicated by the Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith. See foot-note 1. 

P. 188. That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart 

Look 'd wondering each at other. — The original reads "each a 
others." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 188. That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 

Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli. The original has Flatter 'd, 
instead of Fluttered. Corrected in the third folio. 



JAN i 190: 



